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Irish bull

 
Dictionary: Irish bull

n.
A statement containing an incongruity or a logical absurdity, usually unbeknown to the speaker. "With a pistol in each hand and a sword in the other" is an Irish bull.


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Wordsmith Words: Irish bull
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(EYE-rish bul)

noun
A ludicrously incongruous statement.

Etymology
From Latin bull (to mock, jest, etc)

The term isn't restricted to the Irish. It existed long before it came to be associated with them. Their association with this expression can be attributed to the long animosity between the English and the Irish.
Here are some prize Irish bulls:
If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive. -Samuel Goldwyn, movie producer (1882-1974)
Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours. -Yogi Berra, baseball player (1925- )
An Irish bull is always pregnant. -John Pentland Mahaffy, professor (1839-1919)

Usage
"The brothers, Jack (Jack Mulcahy), Barry (Burns) and Patrick (Mike McGlone), are as confused and quirky as characters in a Woody Allen comedy. Burns can't quite take the same intellectual tack because he's talking about working-class types, but `The Brothers McMullen' is nonetheless a knowing look at neuroses that are salved by the fine art of Irish bull." — Peter Stack, Low-Budget 'Brothers' Rich in Humanity and Laughs, The San Francisco Chronicle, Aug 9, 1995.


WordNet: Irish bull
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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: unacceptable behavior (especially ludicrously false statements)
  Synonyms: bullshit, bull, horseshit, shit, crap, bunk, bunkum, buncombe, guff, rot, hogwash, dogshit


Wikipedia: Irish bull
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An Irish bull is a ludicrous, incongruent or logically absurd statement, generally unrecognized as such by its author.

The derivation of "bull" in this sense is unclear. It may be related to Old French boul "fraud, deceit, trickery", Icelandic bull "nonsense", Middle English bull "falsehood", or the verb bull "befool, mock, cheat".[1]

The Irish were supposedly peculiarly prone to such expressions due to their volubility, their taste for colourful metaphors, and their ignorance (or conversely excessive command) of the English language. Extensive use of Irish Bulls are made of by American Jewish humourists, from the period when large numbers of recent Jewish immigrants from Germany or Eastern Europe were present in American cities, which suggests that a similar effect produced the term "Irish Bull", which is partly contemptuous and partly homage.[citation needed]

The "Irish Bull" is to the sense of a statement what the dangling participle is to the syntax. A jarring or amusing absurdity is created by hastiness or lack of attention to speech or writing.

Although, strictly speaking, Irish bulls are so structured grammatically as to be logically meaningless, their actual effect upon listeners is usually to give vivid illustrations to obvious truths. Hence, as the Rev. Sir John Pentland Mahaffy, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, famously observed, "an Irish Bull is always pregnant", i.e. with truthful meaning.[citation needed]

The "father" of the Irish bull is often said to be Sir Boyle Roche[2], who once asked "Why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity, for what has posterity ever done for us?"[3]. Roche may have been Sheridan's model for Mrs Malaprop.[4]

Samuel Goldwyn was a famous American mis-speaker, as was Yogi Berra (see Examples below).

The Irish Bull can be a potent form of self-conscious equivocation and satire in the hands of a wit's sharp tongue. As such, it is associated particularly with new or marginalized populations, such as the Irish in Britain in the Nineteenth Century, or the Jews and Germans in America in the Early Twentieth Century.[citation needed]

Contents

Examples

  • "He'll regret it till his dying day, if ever he lives that long."

- "Red Will" Danaher, film character

  • "These are your three Number One priorities."

- Missy Jaroneski, former VP of IT (company undisclosed).

  • "If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive."

- Samuel Goldwyn, movie producer (1882-1974)

  • "Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours."

- Yogi Berra, baseball player (1925- )

  • "Back to back, they faced each other"

- Anonymous

  • "He'd be turning in his grave if he were alive today"

- Anonymous

  • "Hold me back while I hit him"

-Anonymous

  • "It would be a lovely day if it wasn't for the weather"

-Anonymous

  • "He had a sword in each hand and a rifle in the other,"

-Anonymous

  • "I will cut your head and throw it on your face",

-Anonymous

  • "Thank God I'm an atheist",

-Anonymous

Footnotes

  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "bull, n. 4" [1] (subscription needed).
  2. ^ Falkiner, C. Litton (1902). "Sir Boyle Roche". Studies in Irish history and biography, Mainly of the Eighteenth Century. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co.. pp. 228–240. 
  3. ^ Geoghegan, Patrick M. (1999). "The union passes". The Irish Act of Union. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 110. 
  4. ^ Maye, Bryan (2000-02-14). "An Irishman's Diary". The Irish Times: p. 17. 

Other references

  • Grierson, Philip (1938). Irish bulls. Cambridge. 

See also


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wordsmith Words. © 2009 Wordsmith.org. All rights reserved.  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Irish bull" Read more