Word: gaelic
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Clarke's poetry was the first to present faithfully in English the traditions of Irish Folklore and the intensity of Gaelic verse forms. Before him, Yeats and James Stephens--and even earlier in the 19th century, James Clarence Mangan and Samuel Ferguson--had attempted to revive in literature the traditions that had so long been suppressed during the English occupation. But while these earlier poets--Yeats especially--had helped create a profoundly nationalistic poetry for Irish writers, Clarke was the first to complete the task: he brought ancient Irish mythological themes to life in the same exciting way Robert Fitzgerald...
...book is crammed with old-chestnut anecdotes, pub gossip "laced with the in toxicating ingredient of malice," and sharp observations. Most of these, also inevitably, take a dying fall: the slipshod car-assembly center in Cork that turns out "lemons (or limes)"; those ash trays proudly bearing the Gaelic legend, Deanta sa tSeapain (Made in Japan...
...slain by his comrades as a suspected informer. With these mundane materials, O'Casey unleashes a torrent of engulfing emotions. The actors are up to the challenge. Though he sometimes seems about as Irish as chopped chicken liver and onion on rye, Matthau is full of baleful Gaelic braggadocio as Captain Boyle. As Joxer, Lemmon is as spry and cunning as a soiled city sparrow, and for once, Maureen Stapleton acts from her heart rather than her frazzled nerve ends. Let loud praise for all be heard, for it is much merited...
...origins of Brooklynese are controversial. It has many characteristics, but its hallmark is the pronunciation of the diphthong er as if it were oi (like Joisey for Jersey) and vice versa. Some linguists believe that Brooklynese stems from German and Yiddish. Griffith argues forcefully that it is rooted in Gaelic. He notes that the dialect appeared after a wave of Irish immigrants settled in Brooklyn in the late 19th century. Moreover, Griffith finds that the trademark Brooklyn diphthong oi also appears in many Gaelic words; taoiseach (leader) and barbaroi (barbarians), for example. He also points out that the th sound...
These manglings of Gaelic were once the common language of Brooklyn cabbies, policemen and longshoremen -not to mention baseball fans. One linguistically memorable day at Ebbets Field in the 1930s, when Dodger Pitcher Waite Hoyt was hit by a ball, a spectator jumped up on the bleachers and shouted out, "Hurt is hoyt!" Over the years, as they grew more prosperous, New York's Irish scattered into the affluent suburbs. Blacks and Puerto Ricans have all but taken over such areas as Williamsburg (formerly Williamsboig) and Greenpoint (Greenpernt) in northern Brooklyn, where Brooklynese was born. At the same time...