Irish accents [Was: NYT on Daniel Cassidy ...]

[Grant Barrett]

I think we've almost beat the Cassidy subject to death, but here's a
bit of an Irish perspective. I'm including a whole post below because
it's scheduled to be deleted from Google Groups tomorrow. I
particularly like that last line.

Whole thread:

<http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.irish/browse_thread/
thread/3780a905c22f3b29/9f1bdbe1b1bacf65>

Key post:

<http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.irish/msg/2beca6c42491a488>

From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?F=E9achad=F3ir?= <Féach at d.óir>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.irish
Subject: Re: more things the Irish invented
Message-ID: <lp28j3t15evd4u98780spigjr1gsd171dp at 4ax.com>
References: <fh0jgi0r7e at news3.newsguy.com>
Reply-To: Féach at d.óir

Scríobh "K. E. Dennis" <denn... at mail.newsguy.com>:
 >Well, anyway, mad as it is, I thought I'd dare mention this new
 >publication about <gasp> the impact of Irish on American English.
 >
 >How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads
 >Daniel Cassidy

Cassidy launched this book at Oideas Gael in Gleann Cholm Cille this
summer. He's fun to listen to, talks nineteen to the dozen like only a
native New Yorker can, and how can you not like someone who can tell a
five minute anecdote that goes from a job at the New York Times to
draft-dodging in Canada to writing a screenplay for Francis Ford
Coppola without drawing breath, but when he explained his theory he
was met with polite smiles. The book is great crack, but should be
filed under fiction. Cassidy is clueless about Irish pronunciation,
but that doesn't stop him violently shoehorning every unusual word in
American English into his theory, even those with established origins
- mostly words that have their roots firmly planted in Afro-American
culture, and some that he blatantly nicked from the Italians.

Cassidy spent most of the time in the pub when I met him being
corrected on his Irish pronunciation, and insisting after the sounds
had changed beyond recognition that they could still be mapped on to
his English candidates. It didn't help matters that the locals noticed
that when he did get something right, his pronunciation had a notable
Munster bias. By the end of the night, we were making up words to give
him for the second edition. Good crack, but don't take it seriously.

--
'Donegal:  Up Here It's Different'
© Féachadóir

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