Cassidese Glossary – Whisht

For some time now, some of my on-line friends have advised me to provide a version of CassidySlangScam without the invective aimed at Cassidy and his supporters. In response to that advice, I am working on providing a glossary of the terms in Cassidy’s ludicrous book How The Irish Invented Slang with a short, simple and business-like explanation of why Cassidy’s version is wrong. 

In Daniel Cassidy’s etymological hoax, How The Irish Invented Slang, Cassidy claims that the word w(h)isht, used to shush someone, derives from the Irish word éist, which means ‘listen’. If Daniel Cassidy had known any Irish, he would have known that a version of the word wisht or whisht exists in Irish as well, alongside the word éist. In Irish, it is spelled fuist (pronounced fwishch or fwisht). There is no doubt that this word is a borrowing from English rather than the other way round as it is found in English as early as the 14th century.

Hould Yer Whisht, Danny!

In Daniel Cassidy’s astonishingly stupid book, How The Irish Invented Slang, Cassidy claims that the word wisht, used to shush someone, derives from the Irish word éist, which means ‘listen’. If Daniel Cassidy had known any Irish, he would have known that a version of the word wisht or whisht exists in Irish as well, alongside the word éist. In Irish, it is spelled fuist (pronounced fwishch or fwisht). There is no doubt that this word is a borrowing from English rather than the other way round as it is found in English as early as the 14th century.