Product Description

In a series of lively essays, this pioneering book proves that US slang has its strongest wellsprings in nineteenth-century Irish America. "Jazz" and "poker," "sucker" and "scam" all derive from Irish. While demonstrating this, Daniel Cassidy simultaneously traces the hidden history of how Ireland fashioned America, not just linguistically, but through the Irish gambling underworld, urban street gangs, and the powerful political machines that grew out of them. Cassidy uncovers a secret national heritage, long discounted by our WASP-dominated culture.

Daniel Cassidy is the founder and co-director of the Irish Studies Program at New College in San Francisco.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #240839 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 303 pages

About the Author
Daniel Cassidy is founder and co-director of An Léann Éireannach, the Irish Studies Program at New College of California in San Francisco. His research on the Irish language's influence on American vernacular and slang has been published in the New York Observer, Ireland's Hot Press magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Lá, the Irish-language newspaper.

Customer Reviews

Now a new book credits the Irish language for influencing spoken English - and slang most of all
from the "Irish News", Belfast, July 18, 2007,

"It is a conundrum that has long confused scholars - why the Irish language seems to have had little influence on English as spoken in America. Millions of Irish emigrated to America but English as Americans now speak it appears devoid of Irish references - despite the reputation of the Irish for verbal creativity. Now a new book credits the Irish language for influencing spoken English - and slang most of all.

In How the Irish Invented Slang: the Secret Language of the Crossroads, Irish American academic Daniel Cassidy demonstrates that the influence of Irish emigrants on American existence went beyond pubs and politics.

"The words and phrases of Ireland are as woven into the clamour (glam mor, great howl, shout and roar) and racket (raic ard, loud melee) of American life as the hot jazz (teas, pron j'as, cd'as, heat, passion, excitement) of New Orleans."

Mr Cassidy hopes to waft the winds of change in studies of English - but reminds readers that academics have long harboured a snobbish attitude to Irish. HL Mencken, author of The American Language, said the Irish had contributed very few words to Americans. "Perhaps speakeasy, shillelah and smithereens exhaust the list," Mencken wrote.

Mr Cassidy points out that West used the word "babe", meaning a physically attractive woman, in 1926 - and that the Irish word 'bab' meant a baby, woman or a term of affection. And baloney, meaning nonsense - a word synonymous with America if ever there was one - is derived from the Irish beal onna, meaning foolish talk.

So the idea that the Irish have contributed zilch (word meaning nothing or zero, origin unknown) to American English could be bealonna (baloney after all." - Margaret Canning

Holy Moly (Holy Moladh)! Thanks to Daniel Cassidy for a great read!
I'm no expert here so I won't join the fray on whether or not every suggestion Daniel Cassidy makes is accurate, but there are many things that make this book a terrific read. From his moving story on how the idea of the book came to him in the first place, to the riveting historical information in the opening pages -- including Peter Quinn's fascinating introduction -- to the great list of slang-from-Irish possibilities and the stories behind Cassidy's thinking, this book is what my Irish mother would call the "bees knees" (see page 88!). And if you have the chance to attend a reading by Cassidy, don't miss it! His passion is infectious and he sings a great Irish "secret song."

Mencken lovers, beware
Mr. D. Norder from Knoxville certainly doesn't like this book. He claims to have done a lot of work on the phrase, "Say Uncle" for some unspecified linguist yet fails to cite his 'American' phrases by date or use or any logical connection. Mr. Norder accuses Cassidy of being no scholar and wraps his vitriol in a claim that Cassidy is all BUNKUM, another word Cassidy finds Irish origins for. But Mr. Norder proceeds to give that word the folk etymology started by none other than H. L. Mencken, the Bard of Baltimore.
Well, first thing's first: Cry Uncle was identified as a 'loan word'phrase from the Old Irish in no less a scholarly publication than American Speech >Vol. 51, No. 3/4 (Autumn, 1976), pp. 281-282.
Secondly, Mr. Mencken, his rapacious wit notwithstanding, was a brilliant rhetorician as well as a vehement racist, anti-semite and anti-Catholic. I'm sure Mencken would, like Mr. Norder, prefer to believe that the Irish culture couldn't come up with a language of such beauty and nuance that its near destruction by the English overlords could never be brought about.
In other words, get this book; it's fun and makes one wonder all the more about the brilliance of our spoken language.