Cassidese Glossary – Twerp

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.

The word twerp, an insulting term for an insignificant person or fool, seems to make its appearance first in English about 1910. Nobody is quite sure of its origin. A popular derivation is that it derives from the name of T.W. Earp, an Oxford student who was very aesthetic and artistic and mocked by his sportier contemporaries for his urbanity. The Dictionary of American Slang suggests that it was first used in 1874 (which would discount the T.W. Earp explanation) but apparently there is no citation for this, so I would be reluctant to accept it without further information.

In his etymological hoax, How The Irish Invented Slang, the late Daniel Cassidy claimed that the expression twerp comes from the Irish word doirb, which he defines as ‘an insect, a worm, a dwarf, a small, insignificant person, a diminutive insignificant creature; a small fish, a small fry’.

Doirb, according to Ó Dónaill’s Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla (Irish-English Dictionary), means a water beetle. That is the only meaning given.

Dinneen, an earlier and less accurate dictionary, has a head-word doirbh, which means: an insect, causing swellings in cattle or soreness of the teats; a water-worm (Torr); a dwarf. It can also have the forms doirb, duirb, dairb or darbh.

In other words, doirb, which would be pronounced dorrib, or doirbh which would be pronounced dorriv, is basically a word for a water-beetle. Apparently it can also mean a dwarf but its use as an insult for an insignificant person is not recorded anywhere before Cassidy.

Cassidese Glossary – Sunday Punch

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.

Apparently, the phrase ‘a Sunday punch’ means a killer punch, a knockout, either in boxing terms or metaphorically in other areas like politics. It is not difficult to explain this expression. Most boxing matches probably occurred on Saturday night, so a Sunday punch is surely one that puts you out of action until the following day. Another common expression, ‘to knock someone into the middle of next week’, uses the same metaphor.

Daniel Cassidy, in his etymological hoax, How The Irish Invented Slang, immediately took his Irish dictionary in hand and found what he thought was a suitable word, sonnda.

‘Sonnda, al. sonnta, adj., powerful, strong, courageous, bold (punch). (Ó Dónaill, 1134; Dineen, 1088.)’

As usual in Cassidy’s ‘research’, this is not a real quotation. Sonnda derives from the word sonn, which means a stake or post, so sonnda is a very old-fashioned, literary word for powerful, steadfast, and would be used of a castle or a fortification, not a blow. To confuse matters, Dinneen gives it as an alternative spelling of sonnta, which means forceful, pushy or cheeky. In other words, Cassidy is mixing the entries for two distinct terms. Moreover, none of the meanings attached to the words sonnda or sonnta would lead you to believe that they would ever be applied to blows or punches. There are lots of adjectives which would be used in this way with the word for blow (buille) – buille trom, buille treascrach, buille cumhachtach, buille láidir, buille tolgach.

Cassidese Glossary – Sparring

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.

Daniel Cassidy, in his etymological hoax, How The Irish Invented Slang. claims that the verb ‘to spar’ in boxing comes from the Irish spairn, which means fight, contention, struggle. This is well-known to Irish speakers in the phrase cnámh spairne, a bone of contention.

In order for this to be even slightly convincing, the word spairn needs to have been borrowed into English as sparring and this would then have to have been shortened to spar by the process known as back formation. This is not the case. We find the verb as sparrit, sparres and sparred in Middle English, where it meant to thrust or strike rapidly.

In other words, there is (coincidentally) a similar word in Irish, spairn, but there is an even more appropriate source in English, sparren, which was already in use in colloquial English six hundred years ago.

Cassidese Glossary – Sneak

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.

According to Cassidy, the English word sneak comes from the Irish snighim (sním in the modern, post-reform spelling). He also claims that the Barnhart Dictionary of English Etymology gives this Irish origin. I haven’t got a copy of Barnhart’s and I can’t be bothered to go and look for one, but this claim seems unlikely, given that all the other dictionaries trace it, quite logically, to the Old English snican which is related to cognates in the other Germanic languages as well as to the root of the English word snake.

As usual, Cassidy is being economical with the truth here by ignoring what the mainstream dictionaries say. Snighim is also an unsuitable source for a word used of people, anyway, because it is used for slow-moving animals like snails and slugs. It doesn’t mean to move sneakily or furtively. However, in any case, the word sneak has an impeccable Germanic origin and so it can’t come from Irish.

Cassidese Glossary – Slugger

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.

Cassidy claims that the word slugger, as in someone who hits a ball strongly, comes from the Irish word slacaire, which means a hitter or a batsman (slacaí in modern Standard Irish). On the face of it, this seems like a convincing claim but if you examine it more closely, it becomes less clear.

Firstly, let’s look at slug as a word for hitting. The English dictionaries agree that it is related to slog (as in ‘a hard slog’) and that its origin is unknown. For the word slog, its first recorded use in English is apparently in 1824, while slug is even later, in 1830. The Irish word slacadh apparently comes from slaic (slacán) which mean stick or bat.

The problem is this. Slog looks Germanic. It looks and sounds as though it is related to the German schlagen or the Yiddish shlogn. It seems likely to have been a borrowing from German or Dutch or an obscure English dialect word which was never recorded.

My main reason for being sceptical of Cassidy’s claim is that slacadh sounds very different from slog or slug. The sl is the same, but if English borrowed the word slacadh without changing the sound, you would have a great batsman described as a slacker, who really slacks the ball! Slog could have been borrowed into English from Irish, but it means to swallow. Both slack (slac) and slog (slog) are perfectly easily pronounced words in both English and Irish, so there would be no reason to use slog instead of slack.

Cassidese Glossary – Skinny

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.

The skinny is a slang term meaning ‘the inside knowledge’. It is an American expression and is apparently first found in print in the 1950s. There is no agreement as to its derivation.

According to Daniel Cassidy, this is really an Irish expression, sceitheanna [pronounced shkeh-anna] which according to him is an alternative version of the word sceith, which he defines as ‘(act of) spewing; giving away; divulging (a secret).’ In fact, sceitheanna is the plural form of sceith, not an alternative version.

According to WinGléacht (the electronic version of Ó Dónaill), sceith (as a noun) means 1. vomit; 2 spawning; 3 overflow, discharge, eruption, spreading; 4 disintegration; 5 sceith aincise, quinsy. Sceith the verb has additional meanings of divulging or giving away information, as in sceitheann meisce mírún (drunkenness gives away evil intent – not ‘bad secrets’ as Cassidy mistranslates it).

However, there is no evidence of the nouns sceitheanna or even sceith ever having been used anywhere by any Irish speaker to mean ‘inside information’ or ‘the latest news.’ You will find sceitheanna on Google, but all the references to leaks are to physical leaks (of water, gas) or discharges of things like sewage, not inside knowledge.

Cassidese Glossary – Shill

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.

Shill is apparently a fairground term for someone who masquerades as a member of the audience to encourage people to buy. According to Daniel Cassidy in his etymological hoax, How The Irish Invented Slang, the word shill derives from the Irish síol, meaning a seed. On the face of it, this is reasonable enough, though a serious etymological researcher would be worried by the difference in the vowel – why wouldn’t the word have been taken into English as sheel?

The other problem, which is far more important, is that shill seems to derive from an earlier fairground word shillaber which means the same thing as shill, a plant in an audience. Nobody knows where shillaber comes from and none of the suggestions is particularly strong but it doesn’t sound Irish.

Cassidy quotes his friend Eddy Stack who talks about his youth in Kerry where people who were known as sheelers came to the local fairs. I have never come across this term and there is no evidence of it on line. Unfortunately, Stack is no longer with us so he cannot clarify what the term was, what it meant or whether Cassidy actually quoted him accurately.

Cassidese Glossary – Slew

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.

This is a word that entered American English from Irish in the early 19^th century. It derives from the Irish slua (pre-reform spelling sluagh), meaning a crowd. This derivation has never been controversial and is given in all the dictionaries, including the Dictionary of American Slang, which is quoted as a source by Cassidy in his book. It is worth pointing out that the existence of words like this in the mainstream dictionaries invalidates one of Cassidy’s main arguments, that orthodox scholars tended to deny the Irish or Gaelic origins of words out of prejudice. Words like this show that the scholars have always been quite prepared to admit the Irish or Gaelic origin of words where the evidence exists.

Cassidese Glossary – Quare

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.

This is the same word as queer. It is a regional variant found in the South West of England as well as in Ireland. As we have said before, forms like say for sea and tay for tea that are found in Irish English are not innovations. Standard English originally pronounced them that way but there was a sound change about two hundred years that affected the standard varieties of English but did not affect many dialects like Irish English and West Country English.

Queer is of Germanic origin. It is related to the German quer meaning oblique, perverse or odd, and seems to have entered English via the Scots language (i.e. the Scottish cousin of English, not Scottish Gaelic).

Cassidy’s claim that it derives from the Irish corr is ludicrous because its real origins and known and because corr is pronounced something like cor in the English word coral. It sounds nothing whatsoever like the English words queer or quare.

Here is a link to sound files of the word corr in the major dialects of Irish:

https://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/oddball#oddball__3

Cassidese Glossary – Pogue Ma Hone

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.

This phrase, an anglicisation of Irish póg mo thóin, is universally acknowledged to be from Irish. In one of his more lucid moments in an interview, Cassidy points out that there is no early evidence for the phrase póg mo thóin and that it would not have been recorded because it was obscene. Thus he argues that if expressions like this have left no trace, it is no surprise if other slang terms in Irish like sách úr and béal ónna didn’t get recorded.

This is true but it is also a fact that all Irish speakers accept the validity of póg mo thóin/pogue ma hone. It immediately makes sense to anyone with Irish. The overwhelming majority of Cassidy’s phrases – pure invention from an ignorant fantasist – do not.