Hang on there for a second and I’ll leg it over to you now!’ 9. You can leg it to the shops, or you can leg it around the corner to meet one of the lads.įor example, ‘Shite man I’m running late. For example, ‘Sorry pal – can you tell me where the jacks is?!’ 8. If you hear someone saying that they’re ‘Going to the jacks’ or maybe someday someone will ask you ‘Where are the jacks’ in an Irish bar somewhere in the world, they’re referring to the toilet.
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It’s used to describe something (or someone) that’s not working/broken.įor example, ‘Did you get it printed?’ ‘No, the thing’s banjaxed sure’ or ‘The f*cking car won’t start again – the engine’s banjaxed’. Banjaxedīanjaxed is another lovely Irish expression. If you’ve read our detailed guide to Irish insults, you’ll have an idea of the types of slags that Irish people throw at each other.įor example, ‘He was slagging me, so I gave him a kick in the bollox’. Can you give it a lash with your jump cables?’ or ‘I’ve never tried that before, but sure I’ll give it a lash’. In a nutshell, ‘give it a lash’ means to give something a go.įor example, ‘The car won’t start. You can use ‘give it a lash’ in a heap of different ways. Give it a lash (one of my favourite Irish phrases) Now, there’s another potential use for this Irish phrase, and that’s when describing someone that’s bull-thick (aka angry).įor example, ‘She’s been up to 90 since she came home and saw what the dog did to the couch in the living room’. You’ll often hear this one used in response to questions like ‘How was work today’ – ‘Ah, shtap – sure I’ve been up to 90 since half 7’. ‘Up to 90’ means flat out busy doing something. This Irish expression gets more than it’s fair share of use and isn’t specific to any particular county. For example, ‘Don’t be worrying about it, it’s grand’. It’s worth noting that when someone says that they’re ‘grand’, they may not necessarily be so. You’ll hear it most commonly used as a response to, ‘How’s it going’/’How are you feeling?’/’How are you today?’.
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However, it can also be an indication that the person you’re speaking to is either 1, uninterested in what you’re saying, or 2, has no idea how to respond to what you’ve just said.įor example, ‘Sure look, what can ye do?!’ 2. If you’re chatting to someone and they reply with ‘Sure look’ it tends to mean ‘it is what it is’.
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Here are some Irish phrases that I find my self using CONSTANTLY. In Ireland, many of us use slang words so often that we forget they’re actually slang, for example, ‘Thanks a million’ makes absolutely zero sense to non-Irish people (or so my non-Irish friends tell me!) Mainly when I’m speaking to a non-Irish person and I forget that the words I’m using actually are slang. And it tends to cause a bit of confusion, at times.
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Words used by younger people “often have a bigger story to tell about varieties of English used by particular ethnic or cultural groups, and their influence on the language as a whole”, said the dictionary, which will be offering UK state schools free access to the OED online for this academic year in conjunction with its appeal.Photo by Arthur Ward via Tourism Ireland 1- 11: My Favourite Irish slang words and phrases Other words it will be considering include “dank”, meaning “cool or great”, and “hench”, meaning “fit and muscular”. The OED says this usage “appears to have originated in Caribbean English, and evolved from the sense ‘nothing but, too much of’”. The OED has been tracking a new sense of the word “bare” for a number of years, it said, citing a 2009 example from Twitter: “Friday is going to be the BUSIEST day of my life I think :) Bare things poppin’ off.” It will publish an entry for the slang term at the end of the year, with a draft version identifying it as chiefly British slang, meaning “many or much a lot of”. Given that most of us at the OED left our teenage years behind some time ago, who better to help us identify creative new words and meanings than those who created and used them in the first place?” Yet, there’s something particularly innovative and elusive about the way that young people adapt existing vocabulary to make new words, and in doing so create what seems like a secret lexicon to those not in the know. OED senior editor Fiona McPherson said: “Lexicographers are used to observing and recording language change. Adults are also invited to contribute, if they have examples of young people using “words that are completely unfamiliar to you – or familiar words in very unfamiliar ways”. In its youth slang appeal, the dictionary is asking children and teenagers to send in examples of current slang words, either on Twitter at #youthslangappeal or via its website.