Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/233

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218
ENGLISH AS WE SPEAK IT IN IRELAND.
[CH. XIII.

Boccach [accented on 2nd syll. in Munster, but elsewhere on 1st]; a lame person. From the fact that so many beggars are lame or pretend to be lame, boccach has come to mean a beggar. Irish bacach, a lame person: from bac, to halt. Bockady, another form of boccach in Munster. Bockeen (the diminutive added on to bac), another form heard in Mayo.

Boddagh [accented on 2nd syll. in Munster; in Ulster on 1st], a rich churlish clownish fellow. Tom Cuddihy wouldn't bear insult from any purse-proud old boddagh. ('Knocknagow.')

Body-coat; a coat like the present dress-coat, cut away in front so as to leave a narrow pointed tail-skirt behind: usually made of frieze and worn with the knee-breeches.

Body-glass; a large mirror in which the whole body can be seen. (Limerick.)

Body-lilty; heels over head. (Derry.)

Bog; what is called in England a 'peat moss.' Merely the Irish bog, soft. Bog (verb), to be bogged; to sink in a bog or any soft soil or swampy place.

Bog-butter; butter found deep in bogs, where it had been buried in old times for a purpose, and forgotten: a good deal changed now by the action of the bog. (See Joyce's 'Smaller Soc. Hist. of Anc. Ireland,' p. 260.)

Bog-Latin; bad incorrect Latin; Latin that had been learned in the hedge schools among the bogs. This derisive and reproachful epithet was given in bad old times by pupils and others of the favoured, legal, and endowed schools, sometimes with reason,