A Whole Slew O' Things

I have been pondering today about words and expressions that are fairly common.  The phrase I titled this piece with, for instance.  In the South, that's a fairly common phrase for "a whole bunch of stuff".  It is actually of Gaelic derivation.  Makes sense, a lot of the settlers in the South were from Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  The Gaelic root, sluagh, (pronouced slewa, more or less) means 'multitude' or 'many'.  Hence, our expression, "a slew o' things" for "many things."

Other words and expressions common to places where exiles and immigrants from the British Isles have landed are things like "I reckon."  Aussies use that expression, as do many Americans.  It means, of course, "I think", as in 'in my opinion".  It is an old English word, used in this sense pretty much for ever.  Also means "to make calculations, add up an account or sum."  Used with with , it means "to take (or fail to take) into account."  (Oxford English Dictionary is my source.) 

"Up the creek" (without a paddle)  is an expression that describes being in a very unpleasant and awkward situation.  This is believed to have originated in the U.S. around the 1860s, and was also exported to Australia.  (Of course, it is usually "shit creek", but most people shorten it as they assume which 'creek' is known to all.)

Some words with Gaelic roots that I was not aware were Gaelic derivatives are:
glom, as in "glom on to something" grab or grasp.  This comes from the Gaelic glam  which means grab or clutch.

smithereens - smidirini in Irish Gaelic, smid, in Scots, means little bits. 

slogan - sluagh ghairm  - meaning a call to the multitudes.

slob  slaba - mud, ooze : a slovenly person-  same usage in Gaelic as in English - a slovenly person.

Shanty  seann taigh - means an old house.

dig or twig - from tuig meaning to understand

I got these examples from an article entitled Gaelic Words in English by Franz Andres Morrissey.  It is easily findable online.  You can download the PDF as I did.

Of course, some of our most colorful colloquialisms come from Cockney Rhyming Slang.  From Bill Bryson's brilliant book The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way:  "The two most often cited examples of rhyming slang are apples and pears = stairs and trouble and strife = wife.  In point of fact, you could live a lifetime on the Mile End Road and not once hear those terms.  But there are scores of others that are used daily, such as "use yer loaf" (short for loaf of bread = head) "have a butcher's (short for butcher's hook = look), or "how you doin', my old china?" (short for china plate = mate).  A complicating factor is that the word that rhymes is almost always dropped, and thus the etymology is obscure.  Titfer means "hat"; originally it was tit for tat= hat.  Tom means "jewelry" .  It's short for tom-foolery = jewelry. "

Mr. Bryson goes on to mention some that are much more commonly used today such as "put up your Dukes",  as in Duke of Yorks = forks - hands.  There's also the perennial favorite name of the old Bronx Cheer: "raspberry".  It's from  raspberry tart = fart. (Bet you didn't know that!)
 One more goodie from Mr Morrissey's article:  Bun , which is spelled the same in both Irish and Scots Gaelic, means base or bottom.  From thence the expression "he has nice buns."

So, we owe a lot of our most fun to use expressions to our Gaelic and English ancestors.  Who would have suspected it of most of the English, and the Scots, who have a reputation for being serious and somewhat dour.  (The Irish, well, the Irish are full of good humor.  Scots are too, but they hide it better.)

That's my sluagh of word origins for today.  On other topics, I am overjoyed to once again have my singing voice.  (At least most of it.)  Never fails that when Karen (my teacher) finds a new resonance beginning to open up in my voice, I will get a cold and set myself back a little.  I have confidence that this will not be lost, however.  I never completely lost my voice this time, it was mostly my ears that were compromised, and they are clear now.  I really suspect it was an intense mold allergy, because it got worse on the day when the ground was wet and the sun had been very warm.  Prime for mold growing.   At any rate, I have either acclimated, or the spore count has gone down again, because this weekend I am MUCH better.
My sister has set the date and bought the tickets for our trip to Mom's.  A whole week with very little Internet access.  Pray for me.  (At least my phone can get to the web, but I don't want to run over my data allowance.  Will have to go hang out at the public library for free wi-fi!  Us library folk stick together!)  We are going in October like usual.  LOTS of yardwork to do for our Mom. 

That's about it from here this time.  Be well, and try to look on the bright side of things, even though the world seems bent on rummaging around in the dark.
As Ever,
Katie
In Moore, OK,where things are getting a little tiny bit closer to normal every day.