no sex, please, we're Irish

[waider]

There's no Gaelic word for "sex", apparently. Or maybe we have a lot of them. (via funferal, whose post on the subject is itself worth reading.) Despite being a poor Gaelgóir (as illustrated by the fact that I've probably spelled that incorrectly) even I knew gnéas, although my recollection is that it's sex-as-in-gender rather than sex-as-in-horizontal-mambo. Also, focáil looks suspiciously like a borrowing from English, since the pronunciation would be not particularly different from "fuck all", and even among us non-speakers there's a tendency to create Irish words by taking an English verb and applying the suffix "áil" to it - it's akin to verbing a noun by adding "ing".

Comments

[canetoad.livejournal.com]

How interesting, no verb "to have." That, coupled with the lack of obscenity regarding sex ... sounds vaguely utopian.

When I was entering puberty

[mopti.livejournal.com]

When I was entering puberty, we had the 1974 Encyclopaedia Brittanica at home. I noticed a few years ago that the outer edges of the pages on sex are more smudged than their neighbours. Anyway, I contributed to that smudging in my day and among the facts I recall reading was one that Aran islanders had been established as having sex less often than any other group in the world. Something like 2 or 3 times per year. Whereas the island where they had sex most frequently had sex 2 or three times per day.

It didn't surprise me that a bot of Ireland should be awarded that accolade.

What's with "Gaelic"?

[waidesworld.livejournal.com]

To me it's like saying in English that the French speak Francais! In the English language the language that we speak on our little island is "Irish" Maybe living in the US has ticked me off on this. I have been asked on numerous occasions if I speak Gaelic to which I answer, "No. I speak Irish." When I refer to the word Gaelic in the english language, I speak of Scotch Gaelic, spoken by Scottish, a distant cousin of the Irish language or the Gaelic Athletic Association but never the native tongue of the Irish people.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

It's to make people say "gay lick" over and over again.

Re: What's with "Gaelic"?

[waider.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have made the distinction of "Irish" being the dialect of English spoken here, while Gaelic is the "native" tongue.

Of course, I could just be winding you up in advance of you having to fend off all those Irish Americans on Paddy's Day...

Re: What's with "Gaelic"?

[waidesworld.livejournal.com]

I have an ISO Audit on the 18th so I have an excellent excuse NOT to join this display of "I am Oirish two".