The boys’ teacher tells me they were doing animals at school. “We had F [whose father is German] tell us the names in German; then R [recently returned from Italy with parents who speak Irish to him at home – Irish and Italian good, English possibly shaky] told us the words in Italian and I said twinnies [mental note that despite her protestations she does not always recognise the boys’ individuality, also, is twinnies an Irish word?] what are these animals in French?”
Apparently Daniel was quicker off the mark than Michael which may explain why Michael, who usually is the most anti -French, reproached me for not teaching them more French.
It’s all very different from when I was in school and the most exotic girl in the class was half-Dublin.
O brave new world, that has such people in it! No, twinnnies is not a word, let alone an Irish word. Urgh.
Nope, “cúpla” is the word for a pair of twins – can’t imagine it being used in the vocative except in a grammar exercise. One twin is a “leathchúpla”, on the same principle as “leathshúÃl” = one eye and “leathchos” = 1 leg. (& “leathbhadóir” means a colleague or partner, literally the other boat(wo)man).
In my country school we had several very exotic people who had lived in England until their parents moved back to Ireland (there was a lot of this in the 70s) and who spoke with English accents.
I think that’s rather wonderful. I remember being a bit of a freak for not having a Norfolk accent:-)
QoP quite. Eimear, I quite like the idea of “a chúpla” though. You country people and your exotic English schoolmates – am very envious. Dot, this makes Norfolk sound a bit like Cork which I suspect doesn’t happen very much.
There was a girl in my secondary school class who had lived in South Africa most of her life and another who spent three years in Lesotho (both had Irish parents though). That definitely put us ahead of the multicultural game in 1980s Dublin
You Dubliners and your exotic friends – I knew it was all go up here in the 80s.