h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Big success all round.

Gripe coming . . .

At the concert hosted by the British Embassy in Dublin's Conference Centre last night, the genial host Gay Byrne began with a greeting in Irish, and he interspersed a few phrases of Irish throughout the evening. Gay Byrne is the grand old man of Irish broadcasting, who hosted Irish television's longest-running and most-watched chat show, though I don't remember him using the Irish language much in that.

The fact that royalty must be used to this carry-on, from Wales to New Zealand, is neither here nor there. The gesture is the diametric opposite of the Queen's gesture in starting her speech at the previous night's dinner in Dublin Castle with a few words of irish. That was polite and very charming of her.

It is plain discourtesy to introduce a word your listener cannot be expected to know. The intended message is uncontroversial: we have a language of our own. No insult is intended, obviously, but it is still bad manners.

I was made aware of this consideration when I found myself in a restaurant once as a boy, where only two tables were occupied. The other party was Dutch, and though we didn't interact with them in any way, they spoke English the whole evening. I was amazed, almost shocked; it showed me unforgettably just what courtesy means.

Ooh. Can of worms. I won't sully this thread with my thoughts on the subject. (Not in respect to the Queen or Dutch people in Ireland)

I am very glad that the Queen has been generally well received.

Now I certainly don't have any excuse not to come to Ireland

Hmm. I do like to see the Irish language celebrated, but ... I think I agree with you.

TRiG.

It seems that Obama will visit Ireland as well. And the Irish appear to be well-prepared:

http://clesnes.blog.lemonde.fr/filescropped/634_600_800/2011/05/img_3913.1306014423.JPG

Yep, he's here as I write. The sky over Dublin is filled with the noise of helicopters.

Twenty odd years ago, when I used to drink in our local, there was an old bloke there called David Jones, or 'Dai Sticks'. He, unlike most of the population of South Wales, was a fluent Welsh speaker. He'd occasionally turn around to me and berate me in Welsh, and I pointed out to him politely that I could not speak more than a few words of the language.

Well, he did it once too often, and I very loudly called him an ignorant old tw*t. The pub fell silent, I left and my father had a go at me for being disrespectful.

We used to get this at school as well. Every Friday there was a Welsh assembly, and the bilingual kids - who were very much in a minority as they tended to attend Welsh speaking schools -
would jabber at us from on stage in effectively what was a foreign tongue. No concessions were made for the Anglophones.

The message was very clear - it was our fault for not speaking the official language, despite the fact that we were very much in the majority, and they were casting linguistic pearls before swine. This is extremely insulting to have to endure in one's own country, let alone as an honoured guest.

There you go.

One is reminded of the Gary Larson cartoon "What we say to dogs/ what they hear"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sluggerotoole/153603564/