More on Shanty

I have already discussed the origin of the word shanty and its claimed origin from Irish on this blog. As I said before, the standard explanation among scholars is that shanty comes from chantier, which is a Canadian-French word meaning a lumberjack’s headquarters or a timber-yard or dock, originally deriving from the Latin cantherius, meaning a rafter or frame. This derivation makes sense and is certainly more credible than the Irish claim. I notice that there was a brief exchange a couple of years ago about this subject on Twitter, when a tweeter called HibernoEnglish posted the following:

Shanty – a word known around the world from its association with the Shanty Town – a settlement of poor people – comes from the Irish seantigh – Old house. Shanty itself in Hiberno meaning a ramshackle dwelling.

Another tweeter, Coiste na bhfocal, took issue with this claim:

100% cinnte nach ón nGaeilge a thagann sé [100% sure that it doesn‘t come from Irish]

This is a false etymology. Níl bunús leis. [There is no basis to it]

They also cited this blog in support of the idea that shanty is not from Irish. HibernoEnglish rapidly replied, pointing out that Terence Dolan had supported the idea that shanty came from Irish:

Céad faoin gcéad? Disputed maybe, not 100%. This is the entry in T Dolan’s Dictionary of Hiberno-English. Probably the foremost expert on the dialect, could be wrong but unlikely to fall for the sources cited in the blog post above.

It is quite true that Dolan supported this claim, but Dolan, though he was a good linguist and scholar, was not infallible. Here is what he had to say on the subject:

Shanty / ʃænti/ n., a makeshift cabin; a ramshackle house; a shabby liquor-house <Ir seantigh, old house. ‘He’s up there living inan old shanty at the butt of the mountain, waiting for them to build him a council house (TF, Cavan).

Coiste na bhfocal nua answered the other tweet as follows:

He definitely wouldn’t have fallen for that source but I am sure that origin is incorrect. Dolan’s book is generally excellent but that is a bad miss.

Why did Dolan get it so wrong in this case? First of all, we need to look at what Dolan’s book is aiming to do. It is about the English language as spoken in Ireland. He seems to be saying that because it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that seanteach or seantigh could have crossed into Hiberno-English from Irish, that should be included in the book. I agree with Coiste na bhfocal nua that this is a very unlikely claim. If we could find a reference to “a shanty with ancient whitewashed stone walls and a thatched roof”, that would strengthen the case considerably. But we don’t.

I have already dealt with the fact that in an Irish book dealing with gold mining, Mac Gabhann’s Rotha Mór an tSaoil, the words used for their dwellings are teach, cábán and bothán, not seanteach. I have noted that the meaning of shanty in Hiberno-English is not describing an ancient house but ramshackle, makeshift temporary structures, just like in other dialects of English.

However, this is not the only evidence in support of the idea that shanty has nothing to do with the Irish seanteach. There is plenty of other evidence in 19^th century newspapers.

What about this early reference set in Canada from the 22^nd of September 1833, in a London publication called Bell’s New Weekly Messenger?

About sunset, dripping wet, we arrived near the spot we were in quest of, – a shanty, which an Indian, who had committed murder, had raised for himself. It may be proper to mention here, that a shanty is a temporary shed formed of the branches of trees.

Or what about this, from the Cork Constitution of 23^rd of December, 1834:

MURDERS IN AMERICA (From the Baltimore American)

It becomes our unpleasant duty to relate the particulars of a most diabolical outrage which has been committed on the line of the Washington railroad, about 18 miles from this city, involving the murders of three of the deputy superintendents of construction. It appears that on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Gorman, one of the contractors, was assailed in his own shanty by eight or ten men, supposed to be some of those at work on the road.

Or this, from the Mayo Constitution of the 12^th of June, 1834?

The Irish laborer, mechanic and farmer, with small capital, must most decidedly better their condition by emigration to the Canadas – but gentlemen accustomed to the comforts of life at home must be losers by the exchange, for they must wield the axe as well as another – they must put up with a salt pork dinner, unless they live near some town or village, for the first few years – they must be content with a log house or shanty, which are easily raised here …

In other words, all of the early references to shanties make it quite plain, not only that the shanty is a makeshift, temporary dwelling, they also make it quite plain that the shanty is a makeshift, temporary dwelling in the wilds of America or Canada! There is absolutely no evidence that the English word shanty has any connection with the Irish language.

Daniel Cassidy and the Irish Papers

We have recently discovered that ‘Professor’ Daniel Cassidy, self-proclaimed discoverer of hundreds of concealed Irish expressions in American slang, didn’t have a degree. In terms of the framework for qualifications we use in this country, Cassidy was a Level 3 (equivalent to Ardteistiméireacht in the 26 Counties, Scottish Highers, A-Levels here, in England or in Wales or USA High School Diploma). To be a professor, you would normally be expected to have a Level 8 (Doctorate), though you might just get there with a Level 7 (Master’s Degree) in special circumstances. In other words, the man was a total fraud.

However, like many fantasists and con-men, he also had a brass neck. After his crazy book was published in 2007, he went on tour to pitch his ludicrous ideas to Irish America and to the Irish themselves. A lot of articles appeared in the press in Ireland.

We have already discussed the shameful complicity of the Irish-language newspaper Lá in the Cassidy Scandal. As we have said before, one of Lá’s journalists got a trip (presumably free) to Cassidy’s Irish Crossroads Festival in California, so this junket probably explains why they felt obliged to support this nonsense (if rather unenthusiastically) rather than strapping on a pair and telling the truth about Cassidy’s complete lack of ability.

Another offender was the Irish News, which adopted a completely uncritical and laudatory tone in an article by Margaret Canning, who obviously knows as much about the Irish language as Cassidy himself.

However, the worst offender was the Irish Times, which used to be a sensible and intelligent paper. Pól Ó Muirí reviewed the book in glowing terms in the Irish language section, though it seems to me that his article is slightly tongue in cheek. Even if it is, the mockery is so subtle that it might as well not be there. Then Kate Holmquist reviewed it on 28 July 2007, again repeating all kinds of stupidities, such as jism coming from teas ioma, which Cassidy says means an abundance of heat and passion; figuratively semen. This is, of course, complete nonsense.

However, the prize for chief sucker of the Irish nation goes to Frank McNally in An Irishman’s Diary, a regular column in the Irish Times. McWally gave it a glowing review on August 2, 2007:  “It’s not every dictionary you can describe as a thrilling read. But when I picked up Daniel Cassidy’s How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads the other day, I soon found myself reluctant to put it down. Compared with the OED, certainly, this is a page-turner….” Yes, Frank. That’s because the OED has lots of FACTS. Cassidy’s book is full of fascinating CRAP.

But McWally couldn’t leave it alone. On Friday 13 March 2009 he was plugging Cassidy again, trying to present a ‘balanced’ argument. He talks about linguists looking for written sources while ‘lack of written sources … was central to Cassidy’s argument.’ He also rang Cassidy, apparently, but was unaware of the time difference so the conversation was unproductive. What he didn’t do was phone an academic, a linguist or an Irish speaker in the same time-zone and ask them why this book is mindless shite, which is what he should have done.

McNally was obviously impressed by Cassidy (or perhaps he finds it hard to think of new material). On Sat June 4, 2011, he wrote another article lending support to Cassidy’s specious nonsense. This is one of the worst articles I have ever read. It completely misses the point, drags in H.L. Mencken, the stringency of linguistic methodology and the garrulous nature of the Irish. However, we have to remember here that the book is stuffed full of nonsense. A person with access to Google (and you would hope a so-called journalist would have access to Google) would be able to look up the real derivations for Cassidy’s words and find that the material presented in the book doesn’t actually reflect what the dictionaries say. And of course, anyone looking at an Irish dictionary would realise pretty quickly that Cassidy’s Irish ‘sources’ are hooky as well. Why didn’t McNally do this? Why indeed!

Then on 9 May 2013, McNally discussed the origins of the term phoney, claiming that Cassidy was the first to make the connection between phoney, the obsolete slang term fawney and Irish fáinne. A quick look on Google (try it Frank, it’s really good!) will show that Eric Partridge had already published this claim  in 1990 and I would guess that he probably wasn’t the first to make that connection.

Finally, on 16 Oct 2013, there is another massive plug for Cassidy, again with no attempt to find out what genuine experts think – or more importantly, know. Five plugs for the Great Fraud and not one valid or intelligent criticism of any of Cassidy’s bogus claims – not even the one about Gunga O’Din, Dia idir sinn agus an drochrud!

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. Ed Power, writing in the Belfast Telegraph and the Irish Independent in December 2007, did what a real journalist would do. He lifted the phone and got a couple of comments from Professor Terence Dolan, who dismissed Cassidy’s book as almost entirely wishful thinking.

What lessons can we learn from this? Well, don’t read Frank McNally’s column is fairly high on the list. In praising this book, Frank McNally, in addition to revealing that he’s a bit of a pillock and that the Irish Times isn’t what it was, has become one of the few people to support this ridiculous book without (apparently) having any kind of personal connection with Cassidy. It’s kind of understandable that Eamonn McCann would say how great the book is, because he knew Cassidy. As did Peter Quinn, and Joe Lee, and John Rickford, and Alexander Cockburn, to name but a few. What’s Frank’s excuse, apart from laziness and stupidity?

Another lesson is the fact that most people don’t know anything about linguistics. Mathematicians complain that people are happy to admit their innumeracy and that it doesn’t carry the same stigma as illiteracy. Personally, I don’t accept their argument. I think maths is fascinating and I wish I were better at it but it doesn’t bother me because I don’t use it in my everyday life. However, everyone uses language – all the time – and yet the facts of linguistics are a mystery to people who regard themselves as educated. Many people regard knowledge of a few irrational, normative rules of grammar like not splitting infinitives as linguistics, whereas in fact true linguists have a very different agenda.

However, the biggest and most important lesson is probably how enormous our inferiority complex as a nation is (and was, even before the Celtic Tiger was put to sleep). All it takes is for an arrogant, ignorant little gobshite like Cassidy to turn up with a Noo Yoik accent and a monomaniacal sense of entitlement, pretending to be a supporter of the Irish language and a genuine academic and a friend of Francis Ford Coppola, and people instantly lose all their common sense and start tugging the spiritual forelock which the Irish developed a couple of hundred years ago for the purpose of kowtowing to the local Anglo-Irish landlord.

Pathetic!

Mo Hurley

One of the most interesting blog posts I have read on the subject of Daniel Cassidy is this one, from a friend of his called Mo Hurley:

http://mohurley.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/remembering-danny-cassidy.html

This shows many of the flaws of the Cassidese Liberation Front in that it blames the dictionary dudes for their refusal to give the Irish their due, ascribes Irish origins to words like lollapalooza and kybosh and doesn’t check the sources very well. At one point, it claims that this is a quote from Cassidy:

“The English language does not often absorb other languages, especially the Celtic languages. Irish has the longest association with English of any language on the planet, yet in England all we’ve got are a handful of words such as whiskey.”

Of course, this is not a quote from Cassidy. This is nearly the antithesis of everything that Cassidy claimed, as Cassidy insisted without evidence that hundreds if not thousands of common English words were derived from Irish. The quote above is saying that very few words were borrowed from Irish and it comes from a genuine academic called Terence Dolan.

However, this blog post does not belong in my hall of shame. Why? Because while Hurley plainly admired and liked Cassidy, and you would expect her to be as positive as possible in an obituary, she is quite open about the fact that she found most of his Irish derivations of English words dodgy and hard to believe. She says that he may have done more harm than good, that:

“I didn’t always agree with Danny’s interpretations of Irish and the development of street slang, as he sometimes played it a little too fast and loose with linguistics. Danny didn’t speak Irish and didn’t know the grammatical rules of Irish, an ancient highly inflected Indo-European language.”

She also says that  the post is: “in honor to the man himself, not the (de)merits of his book.”  

So, while there are things I dislike about the blog, she is displaying an admirable amount of integrity here and drawing a clear line between the man and his crazy theories. Unfortunately, this kind of integrity is rare. Most of Cassidy’s friends still insist that his crazy theories must have been right because he was a personal friend of theirs, which frankly is an insult to the rest of us and especially to our intelligence.