Slang Mysteries Solved?
I am not a native speaker of English. I learned it when I came to to the US from the Ukraine. I was only 8 and within a year I was fluent, but it took me decades to learn some of the funny slang terms that friends of mine would pull from what seemed the deepest canyons of their gray matter. I would look at them in utter confusion. What did you just say? Many of the expressions just struck me as completely ridiculous and nonsensical. For example, take “cry uncle” when asking for help or giving up. Uncle? Who calls their uncle in moments of pain or desperation? Crying for mom, dad, a brother, or sister would make infinitely more sense. Apparently, I was not the only one who thought American slang expressions were just a little too absurd.
Daniel Cassidy, who had a healthy dose of curiosity and the right ethic background, has solved the mystery! He has traced many American slang terms to Irish words. The tricky thing is that we did not just incorporate Irish words into our language, but we Anglicized many of them — keeping the original Irish meaning and substituting English words for the sounds. According to Cassidy, “cry uncle” is from “cry anacal” and anacal means mercy in Irish. And I am beside myself in excitement that “gee whiz” and “holy cow” and “holy mackerel” also appear to have roots in some LOGIC!!!
So this St. Patrick’s Day, over a pint of green beer or a bite of green bagel, you can celebrate a newly polished link in the American-Irish chain.
Here is the Times article:
Humdinger of a Project: Tracing Slang to Ireland
November 23rd, 2007 at 8:43 am
Paul Dickson, an author of a book on Slang, gave a very coherent speech last year about not only the origin of some slang, but how it can become dated. Very interesting. From workplace dynamics to other countries, American slang springs from a number of sources and evolves.
Did you ever see the movie Airplane? It’s a tongue-in-cheek 70s comedy. In the movie, someone translates for two men speaking “jive.”
I think the topics of language formation and language in terms of self-identification are interesting.
February 9th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Is there a good list/dictionary which incorporates these origins? I am looking for the original word and meaning of Holy Cow in particular, as well as the origin of using “Bird” as a given name for a male. Thanks Love this site, by the way.