Expressions that Date You

I'll tell my maw when i get home
The boys won't leave the girls alone
They pulled me hair and stole me comb
But that's alright till i get home
She is handsome she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city
She is courtin' one two three
Please won't ye tell me who is he

Albert Mooney says he loves her
All the boys are fightin' for her
They knock at the door
And they ring at the bell
Sayin' "Oh, my true love, are you well"
Out she comes as white as snow
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
Ould Johnny Murray says she'll die
If she doesn't get the fella with the rovin' eye

Let the wind and the rain and the hail blow high
And the snow come travellin' down from the sky
She's as nice as apple pie
And she'll get her own lad by and by
When she gets a lad of her own
She won't tell her mother till she comes home
Let them all come as they will
For its Albert Mooney she loves still

I'll tell my maw when i get home
The boys won't leave the girls alone
They pulled me hair and stole me comb
But that's alright till i get home
She is handsome she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city
She is courtin' one two three
Please won't ye tell me who is he

Or so i had it, when just a wee Setanta . . .

I began looking forward to the new millennium when I realized that, right about now, I could start referring to events in "aught 2", as in, "You think this is cold--you should have been around in the winter of aught 2!"

Playing the tiresome old codger can be so much fun...

Wow, that's almost exactly how my grandparents sang it... though, my Gran was from Carlow and my grandad was an Antrim man with a French ma, so that taints the purity of their rendition

The only differences are: they sang 'rings on her fingers; bells on her toes', 'tumblin'' instead of 'travellin'' and 'sweet' instead of 'nice.' It's funny how the song changes slightly... but anyhow, that brings back good memories.

Ain't no purity there, Boss, the way you like best to sing it is the best way to sing it . . .

I was raised by my grandparents, Mr. & Mrs. Antrim . . .

Hey Soz, remember "gag me with a fork - spoon", "bitchen!!!" and when "Rock On" was "sayin' all that" "back in the day".

"Workin' for the man" was the universal cry.
"Talk to the hand, girlfriend" was hip for awhile but now "No worries" stolen from the aussies is "big" 'round here.
"5 by 5"

Ah, but I must bow down to your clearer Antrim pedigree; many nationalities and moves have diluted my ancestory... when I was helping my cousin with his research on the (strange) family, we found that there seems to be someone from the Ayrës/Mulligan clans in most countires. The more ambitious side of my family- into which I was not born, doh- got around with the natives . We also have two people on the Spanish side of my family whom Franco's henchmen killed for teaching Catalan. When the potato famine struck, where did they go? America? No. England? No. France.

Ah, I remember all of those expressions, apart from the first one, which made me laugh. It's almost as weird as 'two ducks and a dream.' Some people still use those around here, especially 'bitchin'!'

so much slang around here among english speaking community. Here are some commonly used synonyms


"cool" = mint = sweet = wicked = fresh = boner = ace = sorted = rocks

"drunk" = plastered = smashed = gone = wasted = slaughtered = banged up = trashed = binned = greened out = netted = locked

"not cool" = gay = sad = boner (yes it means both cool and not cool) = wang = queer = bent = biro = egg = flipped = homo

miscellaneous ones include: hung, innit, road (dont know what this means even), score, word, whack.

There are countless others, but i thought id include the ones i figured youd all be less familiar with. maybe theyll catch on on your country... maybe not. 'cool' words will always change, but this is what it looks like at the moment.

I just realised how many references there are to homosexuality on the 'not cool' category... i dont know what to make of that. there is a very open gay populace here, and there is no prejudice at all... weird

Wigged out!

How about "shine it on"? Similar in meaning to "spaced it out" but more in the sense of "conveniently ignored it" than "was too messed up to follow through"...

I was shocked, shocked, I tell you, to find out what 'mooning' meant! Oh these youngsters and their vulgar language.

I was shocked to find out what 'lapsed nun' meant. I think the rabbi nearly had a knipshin when I asked.

I was never much for current slang, except a few words used by the beatniks when I was eighteen. My friends used "boss" and "tough" much the way some used "bad" later on. It was the beatniks for one, who used "ball" to mean "party".

"So the Indians like see Captain Smith and they're like, um, "Dude, there's one of those lame-ass foreigners. Cool! Let's get him!" So they, um, capture him and stuff, and they're like "Sweet, man, that kicks ass!" So they like bring him back to their village and he's like "Um, dude, this is like hella weak." And they're like "This totally ain't your day, dude. We are SO gonna, um, kill you and stuff. Mostly." But Pocahontas is like "Hello, I dig him, white guys rule, don't kill him, that's like, um, way retarded, it'll suck so much ass!" So the chief is like "Ew! OK, you skanky ho, go marry him and, um, do stuff," and she's like "Rad, man! This is SO gonna be way tits!"

way tits?

OK, Cav, I'll probably be sorry I asked, but I have to know what a lapsed nun means.

Another phrase popular in the late 40s: Kill it.

You guys are all that and more, you're da bomb!

Totally tubuler, gnarley dude.

One term I hate, and I don't know why, is "shizznit".

Dis thread is de whip . . .