We’ve got a couple of Irish friends coming to Vancouver for a visit. It’s such a joy to hear their accents. It’s so darling how they say ‘cam’ for ‘calm’ and ‘shewer’ for ‘shower’. I really enjoy playing tour guide, especially to people visiting Canada for the first time.
I’ve recently enjoyed reading Dervala’s site, where her lingo makes me pine slightly for the old country. This entry in particular highlights the Vancouver and Irish common obsession with real estate in a conversation with her hair dresser. Charming Irish usage includes:
“He’s thinking of selling his house. Herself insisted on moving out there, but it’s too far out.” – Herself referring to the man’s wife.
“Your man wants $625K for it.” – Confusing at first, but roughly equivalent to ‘the guy’. It always suggested to me that I somehow had an intimate relationship with the man in question. “Your one” is a gender neutral alternative.
“Sure why would I do that?” – ‘Sure’ is used here as a sort of conjunction, I suppsoe.
Her Limerick stylists summarizes Dublin life rather aptly: “It’s no life up there. Half the day trying to get to work, and then no one wants to go out at night because the mortgage is so high.”
‘Your one’ which is pronounced ‘Yar wan’ is used to describe a woman. An example usage would be ‘Wood ya look at yar wan’, which means one of two things; ‘look at that really good looking woman’ or ‘look at that unusual looking woman’.