Finnegan's Wake - Uncommon or Non-standard English Phrases and Terms

Uncommon or Non-standard English Phrases and Terms

  • brogue (accent)
  • hod (a tool to carry bricks in)
  • tippler's way (a tippler is a drunkard)
  • craythur (craythur is whiskey, "a drop of the craythur" is an expression to have some whiskey)
  • Whack fol the dah (non-lexical vocalsinging called "lilting"; see Scat singing and mouth music)
  • trotters (feet)
  • full (drunk)
  • mavourneen (my darling)
  • hould your gob (shut-up)
  • belt in the gob (punch in the mouth)
  • Shillelagh law (a brawl)
  • ruction (a fight)
  • bedad (an expression of shock)
  • Thanam 'on dhoul (your soul to the devil)

Non-English phrases:

  • The last part of the song where Tim Finnegan says, "D'ainm an diabhal", means "In the name of the devil", and comes from the Gaelic.
  • However, in other versions of the song, Tim says "Thunderin' Jaysus" or "Thanum an Dhul".

Read more about this topic:  Finnegan's Wake

Famous quotes containing the words uncommon, english, phrases and/or terms:

    But tell me: how did gold get to be the highest value? Because it is uncommon and useless and gleaming and gentle in its brilliance; it always gives itself. Only as an image of the highest virtue did gold get to be the highest value. The giver’s glance gleams like gold. A golden brilliance concludes peace between the moon and the sun. Uncommon is the highest virtue and useless, it is gleaming and gentle in its brilliance: a gift- giving virtue is the highest virtue.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    An English man does not travel to see English men.
    Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)

    The Americans ... have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment’s reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.
    W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)

    It is surely a matter of common observation that a man who knows no one thing intimately has no views worth hearing on things in general. The farmer philosophizes in terms of crops, soils, markets, and implements, the mechanic generalizes his experiences of wood and iron, the seaman reaches similar conclusions by his own special road; and if the scholar keeps pace with these it must be by an equally virile productivity.
    Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)