Mar. 21st, 2011 01:12 pm
A post of substance
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muckefuckIt is an Irish word for "beefy" that I was wanting the other day and I'm glad of it, for it led me to a term of endearment that I'll be doing my damnedest to wear out. Téagartha was one of the equivalents spat out by the online dictionary, but the gloss given in my de Bhaldraithe was "substantial, stout, bulky". Didn't sound like the right connotations for my purposes, so I had a look at the root word téagar.
It's "substance" that is the core meaning. A fear a bhfuil toirt is téagar ann ("man in which is mass and substance") is a "big, strongly-built man" and you can describe someone as "full grown" by saying tá téagar fir ann "there is the substance of a man in him". But, rather unexpectedly, the second definition is "shelter, warmth, comfort", e.g. téagar tí "comfort of a house". The extended meaning "substantial amount" (e.g. téagar éisc "a good quantity of fish") is less surprising.
Only the Irish would take a word already so useful and make it something you can call your sweetheart. Where else could you find a term that lashes together quite the same raft of good qualities? A théagair, is é mo neart is mo chompord tú!
Still reading Tóibín, by the way. Blackwater Lightship was a bit disappointing in the end, but it didn't hold me back from starting The heather blazing last night. This novel also features the seaside town of Cush, too small to appear on any map, but in searching for it I found the North Slob (as well as North East Slob and North West Slob). My Hiberno-English dictionary tells me this is an anglicisation of slaba "mud", and it is the proper name of the reclaimed mudflats north of Wexford Harbour. TTFW! (Too Twee For Words!)
It's "substance" that is the core meaning. A fear a bhfuil toirt is téagar ann ("man in which is mass and substance") is a "big, strongly-built man" and you can describe someone as "full grown" by saying tá téagar fir ann "there is the substance of a man in him". But, rather unexpectedly, the second definition is "shelter, warmth, comfort", e.g. téagar tí "comfort of a house". The extended meaning "substantial amount" (e.g. téagar éisc "a good quantity of fish") is less surprising.
Only the Irish would take a word already so useful and make it something you can call your sweetheart. Where else could you find a term that lashes together quite the same raft of good qualities? A théagair, is é mo neart is mo chompord tú!
Still reading Tóibín, by the way. Blackwater Lightship was a bit disappointing in the end, but it didn't hold me back from starting The heather blazing last night. This novel also features the seaside town of Cush, too small to appear on any map, but in searching for it I found the North Slob (as well as North East Slob and North West Slob). My Hiberno-English dictionary tells me this is an anglicisation of slaba "mud", and it is the proper name of the reclaimed mudflats north of Wexford Harbour. TTFW! (Too Twee For Words!)
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I read somewhere that it was common up until recently for men to call each other things like grá and stór in entirely platonic contexts, rather like how men (unless I've been consuming too much media) in some dialects of England English will (platonically) address each other as 'my love'. Do you know anything about that?