Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/269

Elegant. This word is used among us, not in its proper sense, but to designate anything good or excellent of its kind:—An elegant penknife, an elegant gun: 'That's an elegant pig of yours, Jack?' Our milkman once offered me a present for my garden—'An elegant load of dung.'

I haven't the janius for work,
⁠For 'twas never the gift of the Bradys;
But I'd make a most elegant Turk,
⁠For I'm fond of tobacco and ladies.

(Lever.)

⁠'How is she [the sick girl] coming on?'

'Elegant,' was the reply. ('Knocknagow.')

Elementary schools, 159.

Exaggeration and redundancy, 120.

Existence, way of predicating, 23.

Eye of a bridge; the arch.

Faireen (south), fairin (north); a present either given in a fair or brought from it. Used in another sense—a lasting injury of any kind:—'Poor Joe got a faireen that day, when the stone struck him on the eye, which I'm afraid the eye will never recover.' Used all over Ireland and in Scotland.

Ah Tam, ah Tam, thou'lt get thy fairin',
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'.

(Burns.)

Fair-gurthra; 'hungry grass.' There is a legend all through Ireland that small patches of grass grow here and there on mountains; and if a person in walking along happens to tread on one of them he is instantly overpowered with hunger so as to