The Irish Invented Slang. So There.

IT'S ALL IRISH Many people pointed me to an item in the New York
Times (http://wwwords.org?CASS) this week, in which Daniel Cassidy
contends that many of the most common slang terms used in American
English actually have an Irish origin; for example he claims that
"buddy" has its origin in "bodach", Irish for a lusty youth; that
"Say uncle!" derives from "anacal", mercy; that "dude" originates
in "dúid", a dolt or foolish-looking fellow, and that "bunkum" is
from "buanchumadh", a long made-up story. Many of us have doubts.
My piece below about "dude" - and an earlier one about "Say uncle"
(http://wwwords.org?UNCL) - show that I disagree with him about the
origins of at least two of the words he lists that I've been able
to research in detail. Also, "bunkum" is firmly linked historically
to Buncombe County, North Carolina, through its being mentioned in
a long and inconsequential speech in Congress by its congressman
solely to please his constituents. Mr Cassidy's 68-page book, How
the Irish Invented Slang, last month won an American Book Award for
non-fiction from the Before Columbus Foundation, so he is clearly
taken seriously in some quarters. But Grant Barrett, lexicographer,
project editor of Oxford's Historical Dictionary of American Slang
and vice-president of the American Dialect Society, makes clear in
a blog entry this week (http://wwwords.org?DBLT) that he disagrees
fundamentally with Mr Cassidy's ideas.

named after Glomerulus nephrus, the Roman God of urine.

farmerman wrote:

named after Glomerulus nephrus, the Roman God of urine.

That might be the single best post I've seen in a dog's age.