[Fwd: Fw: culchie phrases]

[Joseph P. McGowan]

On Thu, 22 Jul 1999, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote:

> Had to pass this along.  OK, it's not American - but some are irresistible.
> Rima
> >
> >Now here are some I bet none of you have heard of...from my friend James in
> >Dublin.

A lot of these are in Bernard Share's fairly comprehensive _Slanguage: A
Dictionary of Irish Slang_ (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1997).
        I imagine it's a Dublin Jackeen sendup of alleged culchie talk.
Some of the phrases belong more to the city than the culchie's turf.
Culchie is still in active use; my students from Dublin call folks from
Cavan, Mayo, virtually anywhere else a culchie if a rural.  It's even
stronger than `bogtrotter' in connoting a `rube, hick, backwards person'
and has no satisfactory etymology: perhaps _coillte_ (`the woods' =
bumpkin) or _cul a ti_ (rear entrance to an Ascendancy Big House =
socially inferior person).

-Joe McGowan

Dr. Joseph McGowan
Dept. of English
University of San Diego