Pingback from Irish Word a Day - Bus - Bus « Join Martin
Pingback from Twitter Trackbacks for Irish Word a Day - Bus - Bus - Focal an Lae - Irish Word a Day - Talk Irish [talkirish.com] on Topsy.com
Tá mé go moch don bhus.(I am early for the bus).
We have had a query from a member who says that they were told at school that mall is slow, while déanach is late. Unfortunately, not everything you are taught in school is 100% accurate! If you look at Ó Dónaill's dictionary, you will find that mall is somewhere between slow and late in meaning. Late potatoes are prátaí malla and a clock can be mall if it's running late! If you think about it, they are very closely related concepts. In the north, mall usually means late, while fadálach is more likely to mean slow. Déanach hardly exists at all in the north, apart from in phrases like an Ola Dhéanach (Extreme Unction). In other words, it's partly a dialect thing, and partly that Irish doesn't parcel up the meanings exactly the same (random) way that English does. It parcels them up in its own random and mysterious ways!