Nick, an Englishman who divides his time between Ireland and Virginia, says his American friends were baffled when he described a convivial evening with them as good craic, pronounced just like English crack. The word craic is now associated with the Irish, but it first appeared as crac as a form of crack (as in “a cracking good time”) in Northern England and Scotland, then migrated to Ireland, and its meaning evolved from talk or excited chatter to fun and good times. Another evocative Irish word is banjaxed, which describes something messed up. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Northern English and Scottish “Crack” Went to Ireland and Came Back as “Craic””
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Oh, hello. Yes, my name is Nick, Nick Brannan.
I’m English, obviously, by my accent, but I’ve lived in Ireland for 45 years.
Nice.
And I had a meal with some friends here in Williamsburg, where I lived about half a year, and afterwards observed to them that it was good crack.
And they all looked askance at me, thinking I was talking about cocaine.
This word crack, spelled C-R-A-I-C, but pronounced crack is common parlance in Ireland.
And I just wondered if you had come across it in the United States.
Well, Nick, first of all, which Williamsburg are you in part of the year?
Williamsburg, Virginia.
Oh, Virginia.
Okay, very good.
And crack, yes, I do know it.
I think it only comes up for most Americans around St. Patrick’s Day, as you might expect.
There’s an interesting story to this word.
It isn’t originally Irish, which will blow the minds of a lot of Irish people because it feels so utterly Irish now.
And it’s often marketed that way and used in advertisements and beer commercials and the like as being an Irish thing for Irish beer.
It first appears as the regular English word crack, C-R-A-C, in the north of England and the northern counties and parts of Scotland.
And then moves over into Ireland where the spelling in this kind of galicized, the C-R-A-I-C.
And it goes from meaning something like talk, conversation, excited, chatter, to just basically meaning fun or a good time or mischief even.
And then here we are today where it’s kind of lost its roots in the north of England and the northern counties and feels very Irish and is being re-exported back into English.
So it’s made the full circuit.
No, it’s fascinating.
You know, I assume Irish-American communities in the United States would know about it.
Yeah.
But my friends here, archaeologists like me, didn’t have the faintest notion what I was talking about.
That’s interesting.
Yeah, I would say it always feels like it’s on the cusp of breaking through to be everyday American English slang.
I don’t know if that’ll ever be part of the standard American English vocabulary, but it never quite does it, does it?
It never quite comes through.
Well, it’s partly, I think, because it’s an amazingly elusive word.
It’s a portmanteau word that can almost mean what you want it to mean.
I see.
It means great company, to use the French, great ambiance or bon ami.
Quite often involves alcohol, but not to excess.
You couldn’t have great crack in a sports bar or a disco or something like that.
You know, you’d have to be, you know, do you know what I mean?
It needs a certain amount of atmosphere.
Honest fun.
Yeah.
Does it mean you have more connection with the people?
Well, you wouldn’t be, say, dining out or something with people that you didn’t perhaps know or trust.
If it was going to be confrontational, then you’re heading in the wrong direction.
You never get bad crack.
It’s only ever a positive, if you know what I mean.
Good crack.
You can meet somebody in the street that you know, and you can say, what’s the crack?
In other words, summarize your life for me in two or three sentences.
What’s the crack?
Or you can, as we did, go out for a nice meal and a quiet drink and came back.
This was on St. Patrick’s Day.
I treated them.
And when I said that was great crack, they hadn’t the faintest notion.
Do you know?
Yeah, but now they do.
You taught them.
You had a crack in good time.
Well, yes, but I don’t think you even use it that way.
It’s a good crack or good crack.
Good crack, yeah.
Fascinating.
I’ve got to say, that’s great.
And maybe this will be the thing that pushes it over into an everyday word for Americans.
Give us a call sometime, by the way, if you want to talk about archaeological words, because I bet you’ve got a few to share on a future show.
Oh, well, and Irish words.
Yes, please.
Do you know Banjax?
Yes, Banjax.
I used it this morning.
What?
I did.
I talked about the toaster oven at home being Banjax.
Banjax.
But I’m a language guy, so I picked it up from my reading and studying.
Right.
I love that word.
It means something that’s messed up.
It’s Banjax.
Something that’s bust, you know, or gone foul on you.
Yeah, that’s right.
Yeah, that’s a good one.
All the best.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
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