I found a full online version of the article here (no subscription required):
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/30/ ... safire.php
Language: Learning to speak American
Marion McKeone The New York Times
Published: July 30, 2006
Some time ago, my sister spent several months working as an au pair for a wealthy family in Denver. When introducing her to their friends and relatives, the family would pointedly refer to her as "our Irish nanny." My sister assumed that her nationality was a point of pride; a genealogy
snake-oil salesman had just sold them an Irish ancestor for the price of a small country.
As it transpired, it was more of a red flag signaling that verbal roadworks were in progress - she hadn't yet learned to speak American. Her first lesson came on Christmas morning. The grandmother and family matriarch handed her an envelope. My sister, who was making the standard $50-a-week au pair's pittance, opened the envelope and found it thick with $20 bills. Fifty of them, to be precise.
"Oh, no," she protested. "I can't accept this. No. No, really. It's far too generous."
Grandma looked at her quizzically. "If you say so," she responded. Without further ado, she repossessed the envelope, removed a single $20 bill and handed it to her instead. "Is this about right?" she asked.
Helene swallowed her bile, bit her tongue and nodded mutely as she uttered silent curses. She had been speaking Irish, and Grandma had been speaking American. My sister's refusal of the money was meant to convey her gratitude and acceptance of the gift.
We Irish just can't say yes. Or no. It's not in our genes. In Irish Gaelic, we don't even have a word for them. The closest is "Is ea," which means "It is so." And "Ni hea," which means "It is not so." There are, however, about 50 different approximations that indicate various degrees of equivocation.
Our genetic inability to call a spade a spade and our compulsion to say no when we mean yes, and vice versa, are but surface manifestations of a deeply ingrained reflex to subvert, invert and pervert the English language. In Ireland, the words must fit the rhythm, often at the expense of logic or clarity.
Gaelic has its roots in the ancient Goidelic of the Celts. English comes from the Germanic. We may be geographic neighbors, but when it comes to linguistic traits, we're poles apart.
The great voices of Irish literature possess a unique ability to adapt to the uncomfortable imposition of the Queen's English on the Irish rhythm while remaining faithful to the ancient traditions of narrative and storytelling.
For Americans, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The idea is to get the point across. But we Irish are more interested in the journey than the destination, and every exchange presents an opportunity to dawdle.
The liberal, and frequently illogical, peppering of conversations with swear words by Irish writers is more a method of retaining a rhythmic pattern of speech than an expression of hostility. Shane MacGowan, founder and front man of the Pogues, colors his lyrics blue because it reflects the Irish way of speaking, of emphasis and underscoring a point.
MacGowan says that this Irish adaptation of English to its own ends stems as much from an innate rebelliousness as our inability to shake off the persistent rhythms of Irish Gaelic. We resisted the usurping of our native language and its replacement with English by confounding our oppressor with a form of linguistic jujitsu, he says, citing James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" as an example: "Joyce was simply taking the inner Irish rhythm to the limit and imposing it on the English language. There were all these mad English language rules that don't work anyway. The entire book is about pointing out the absurdity of the English language."
Having grown up in a culture of ambivalence and allusion, I was initially astounded by the staccato, rapid-fire directness of American English. During my first visit to New York, I underwent the standard crash course in learning American. Hasty clarifications - like "craic," an Irish term for fun, but not of the variety you buy on a street corner - became less frequent.
I thought I had cracked the American language. Until I made a routine attempt to jaywalk across Fifth Avenue. I was frozen into a state of temporary paralysis by a New York cop who, having blocked my path, bellowed, inches from my face: "Whassamatterwitchya? Ya wanna be road pizza, ya [expletive] moron?" Having achieved his aim of saving my hide, he broke into an enormous grin. "I'm Irish-American," he said, by way of explanation for the explosive consequences that occur when Irish riddlespeak collides head-on with American directness.
Marion McKeone is an Irish journalist based in New York.
-- Dan M.
There beside the weed and thistle, a man, a dog, and his tin whistle.
