Re: "I'm after ..." (Re: Maybe Spam? "Sorunsuz Yathamanýn Kefyi .. .")

Joe wrote:

> Keith Gaughan wrote:
>
>> You know, you just don't notice your own dialectism when you're typing.
>>
>> Be assured, I'm quite fluent in English and have spoken it since I was a
>> wee child. If you pay really good attention to what I write, you'll
>> probably notice that I've a tendancy to slip back into Sligo
>> Hiberno-English, so I do.
>
> Sligo, eh?  I used to live in Leitrim (Drumshanbo, to be exact).
Leitrim? You must have been the only one there[1]. :-)

Nah, Drumshambo's not too bad. Little bit of trivia: apparrently,
Roscommon has both the highest number of chipshops and UFO sightings per
capita outside the the US in the world. Much as I love her, the way my
friend Caroline acts confirms that all the time... :-)

I'm from the south of the county, Aclare to be exact, home to, uh,
stuff...

> Not too far.  Used to go shopping in Sligo.  But that was a long time ago,
> back when I was around 7.
>
>> What you picked out is a pretty salient example of the dialect. The
>> adverb 'after' is used to modify the sentence to a near-past perfect
>> tense when used with the present continuous. It does other effects when
>> used in with the future, e.g. 'you'd/'ll be after a drink, won't you?',
>> meaning 'Do you want a drink?'. I think this crops up in some british
>> dialects, but I'm not sure which.
>
> 'You'll be after a drink' is a different construction, though - since
> 'after a drink' means 'wanting a drink', in British English, anyway.
It pops up in Gaelic (around my parts anyway), so it might have been one
of the constructions/phrases that successfully jumped language and
became widespread. Mind you, it's not with 'tar eis', but with something
else, though the actual one doesn't spring to mind right now.

>> The meaning comes from the use of the phrase 'tar eis' (these days
>> written by some as 'tareis', but that looks terrible and Irish is rarely
>> their first language when they do), meaning... no, guess! Yup, 'after'.
>> The Hiberno-English usage is identical to the one in Gaelic, all forms.
>
> Welsh, too.  'Rydw i wedi gwneud' - 'I have done' - 'Am I after doing'.
All down to a lack of a direct equivalent to 'to have'.

>> P.S. You mission, if you choose to accept it, is to pick out some other
>>      dialectisms in the above text.
>
> 'fraid I couldn't spot any - apart from 'wee'.  But I speak British
> English, spent two years living in Ireland, and have an Irish
> grandfather. So I might just be adapted to it.
Well, there's one glaring one that shows that I'm from around the
border, and that is the use of the tag statement "so X
do/am/will/have/would/etc.". You should be more than familar with
that one from Father Ted. For shame, and you having lived there too!

"Wee" is another dialectism shared in the north and border counties
with Scotland. You don't here it down here in Cork. You wouldn't believe
the ribbing I get from my friends when Sligoisms end up slipping into
my speech. You can't tell where a Sligoman is from from his accent,
(ours seems to have become the standard, if only through fluke, or maybe
Yeats) but you can through his idiom.

K.

[1] Slagging off Leitrim is just short of being a national sport, along
     with slagging off Dublin, Tipperary, and, in particular, Kerry.
     Don't ask me why...

--
Keith Gaughan -- talideon.com
The man who removes a mountain begins
by carrying away small stones...
                          ...to make place for some really big nukes!

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