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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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.
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
An Irish bull is a ludicrous, incongruent or logically absurd statement, generally unrecognized as such by its author.It is considered an inherently offensive and racist term by Irish people.
"Irish bull" originated in this use because such expressions often fall between two different statements, as between the horns of a bull. 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.
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.
The "father" of the Irish bull is often said to be Sir Boyle Roche[1], 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?"[2]. Roche may have been Sheridan's model for Mrs Malaprop.[3]
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.
- Samuel Goldwyn, movie producer (1882-1974)
- Yogi Berra, baseball player (1925- )
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
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![]() | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
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