Dubai Debt Issues Push Stocks Down
Family Gets Early Christmas Gift From Ellen DeGeneres
Photos of D Train Murder Depict Bloody Panic
Stuy Pyro Leaves Notes In Hieroglyphics
Mayor: Sex Trafficking Victims, Please Speak Up
- Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a missing patient at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, a car vs. overpass on Kings Highway in Brooklyn, and a truck explosion on 64th Rd. and 108th St. in Queens.
- A sharp-sighted deckhand on a Staten Island Ferry spotted a pistol sticking out of the pocket of a dim-witted passenger snoozing on a Sunday morning ferry. The passenger, who was arrested, had a long record of criminal weapons possessions.
- The wife of the slain orthodontist Daniel Malakov previously met with a political consultant to plan a custody protest with her daughter in front of the White House. She gave up her plan when advised that "nobody would care."
- Lindsay Lohan is reportedly looking to rejuvenate her image by appearing as the assistant manager at a fast-food restaurant on the television series "Ugly Betty."
- Strip-club Scores is sponsoring a food drive with collected food dedicated to City Harvest called "Cans for Cans." Club customers will gain free admission with a printed-out copy of the promotion from the business' web site and a donated can of food.
- A very interesting look at how pidgin Gaelic by Irish newcomers to NYC shaped modern American slang.
- Community Board 10 will be holding a public hearing on the proposed rezoning of 125th St. on November 14th.
- Bomb scare at Laguardia airport.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Ban guns already.
Interesting article about Gaelic slang, though somewhat surprising. I'd read that relatively few of the Irish immigrants who came to America were Gaelic-speaking.
I believe their command of English consisted of,"I'll have another wee bit of a pint."
Daniel Cassidy's book is terrible! The article writer never consulted with a single linguist. To Cassidy, EVERY bit of slang has an Irish origin. It's absurd.
He's even claimed that "the Big Apple" comes not from the word "apple," but from two Irish words. Surely, that was what the African-American stablehands in New Orleans in the 1920s has meant! Never mind that there are no historical citations!
Dictionary-makers don't have an anti-Irish bias. Word histories are studied thoroughly. Cassidy looks at American slang, finds something similar in the Irish language, and makes a connection. That's not how it's done.
Just a b.s. article published in the NY Times, without any critical filter whatsoever.
Ban guns already.
Yeah, that should solve it all. I can see it now...criminals turning in all of their illegally owned weapons in light of the new ban on guns. [/sarcasm]
I don't think that the word "pidgin" is correct in describing the etymology of slang words that supposedly (according to Cassidy) have their roots in Gaelic. According to Cassidy, these words were used solely among the Irish, not as an auxiliary language between speakers of different languages.
That's the best picture in Gothamist history. That truck driver must have had his head so far up his ass to not see all those signs. Amazing.