Clabberhead is a mild rebuke that suggests someone has a curdled dairy product for brains, clabber being sour milk, ultimately from an Irish Gaelic term for “mud.” The Dictionary of American Regional English has a good history of clabberhead. In...
The phrase potatoes and point involves a family tradition from times of scarcity when eaters would point to an imaginary food and ask for it to be passed when there was clearly no such food to be had. Irish sources trace potatoes and point to the...
Is Murphy’s Law, or the idea that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” a slur against the Irish? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Is “Murphy’s Law” A Slur Against the Irish?”...
Rowan in Ottawa, Ontario, says her Irish mom used a puzzling word to indicate a sort of restless discontent not caused by anything in particular. It may be neamhchinnte, which means “uncertain” or “indecisive.” This is part...
Diana from Tucson, Arizona, reports that when she was young, her Irish grandmother would chase her and her misbehaving siblings around the house yelling, “You omadhauns!” Also spelled amadán, this word of Celtic origin means...
Diane in Frankfort, Kentucky, says her mother always pronounced the word wash with an R sound in it. This pronunciation of wash as “warsh” reflects what linguists call the intrusive R or excrescent R, a form of what’s known as...