# Translating Irish. What's this mean? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 1, 2011, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703 "2011-04-01T00:55:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/1 "2011-04-01T00:55:22Z")
My verry funny (grown) granddaughter sent me a postcard from Dublin with a cartoon picture of a donkey showing off his tail end. The caption reads “Pog mo Thoin”, which she explains on the message side means “Kiss my Ass”. So I put it in Google translate, and that is indeed what it means. What I want to know is whether it means ass as in “donkey” or ass as in “buttocks” in Irish. Or both, as it does in the USA. Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/2 "2011-04-01T01:32:34Z")
Interesting. Google translate for the phrase is as you said, but for the separate words is “kiss,” “my,” and “tones.” Tones? Trying English to Irish, _arse_ translates to “asal” – and so does _donkey._ 😕_Buttocks_ gives “masa,” _rear end_ gives"deireadh chúl," _jackass_ and _burro_ give “jackass” and “burro.” _Pog mo thoin_, on Google translate to French, German, Dutch, and Italian comes up as “kiss my ass” – which sure as hell ain’t French, German, Dutch, or Italian. Methinks something is amiss with the translator. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/3 "2011-04-01T01:37:15Z")
When one back-translates: Donkey is “Asal”. Buttocks is “Masa”. “Thoin” alone comes back as “tunes”. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/4 "2011-04-01T01:45:07Z")
I see. But whoever sold her the card translated the phrase as "kiss my ass’, which fits with the attitude of the card. My precious granddaughter would _never_ make up such a thing. 😉 BTW; she fell in love with Dublin. She seriously wants to a waitress in a traditional pub! ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/5 "2011-04-01T01:49:09Z")
Googling turns it up as meaning “kiss my ass” with “butt” as the specific meaning, but I don’t know if it has a double meaning at all. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/6 "2011-04-01T01:56:19Z")
I simply googled the phrase, and most all agreed that it means “kiss my ass”. This [“talkie”](http://www.irish-sayings.com/) is pretty interesting. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/7 "2011-04-01T01:56:53Z")
“Tunes” comes back as “foinn” “Tunning” comes back as “A dheanamh ar” That’s not getting us anywhere. “thoin” comes back at “ton” in French; “voce” in Latin; “Tone” in German; “choi” (transliterated) in Greek; “tonos” in Spanish; “toni” in Italian; “arlliwiau” in Welsh. These all translate into “tones” in English, except “voce” which comes back as ‘with the voice of’ and the Greek, which I must have copied wrong. The only conclusion I can come to is that “Kiss my tones” is a vulgar epithet in Irish. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/8 "2011-04-01T02:00:49Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > Googling turns it up as meaning “kiss my ass” with “butt” as the specific meaning, but I don’t know if it has a double meaning at all. It’s the common meaning in at least two languages that kind of surprises me. Where’s Robert MacNeil when I need him? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/9 "2011-04-01T02:08:01Z")
It’s the acute mark over the “o”. “Thóin” does indeed translate as “ass” in English. It also translates into “burro” in Portuguese, which is donkey, and “Esel” in German, which comes back in English as “donkey”, too. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/10 "2011-04-01T02:36:17Z")
The only Irish I know is a quaint expression typically uttered by someone who’s surprised or amazed. Phonetically written it’s something along the lines of: Whale oil beef hooked! (I’m told it helps to say it aloud) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/11 "2011-04-01T02:52:10Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > It’s the common meaning in at least two languages that kind of surprises me. Where’s Robert MacNeil when I need him? 😉 Does a majority of people who speak Irish speak English? The phrase may not have been developed in both languages, but may have been adopted by one and translated. The unusual aspect - I think - would be that the phrase **was** translated. Most adopted phrases - bete-noir, apparachik, mano-a-mano - are not. Okay, mano a mano is a particularly bad example. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/12 "2011-04-01T03:20:02Z")
> [@j66](#): > > “Thoin” alone comes back as “tunes”. Well, you blow tunes out of your arse! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/13 "2011-04-01T03:34:56Z")
> [@j66](#): > > It’s the acute mark over the “o”. “Thóin” does indeed translate as “ass” in English. It also translates into “burro” in Portuguese, which is donkey, and “Esel” in German, which comes back in English as “donkey”, too. Interesting. From Irish to Polish, it comes back as “tylek,” which has the butt meaning of the word, not the donkey meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/14 "2011-04-01T03:54:13Z")
“Ass” for the beast of burden is the original word. The other usages come from that. So translations that yield animal references aren’t contradicting usages that refer to cloddish people or rear ends. So to answer the OP: the _word_ can mean both, but the _phrase_ assuredly refers to rear ends. Illustrating it with a donkey picture is thus a kind of bilingual pun. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/15 "2011-04-01T04:07:51Z")
Sorry, better explanation: “thóin” is _posterior_, “asal” is _donkey_–but the connotations of the asal/ass go back centuries. First the dimwit, later the bottom. So my understanding is that “thóin” beside a donkey would be comprehensible in Irish too, through the associations of “asal.” I can imagine the donkey had sort of a dopey look on his face as well. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/16 "2011-04-01T05:45:00Z")
The Irish word is actually _tóin_. It becomes _thóin_ when preceded by certain words, including some of the possessive adjectives like _mo_. It means “ass” as in buttocks. There are no donkey-like connotations at all according to my dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/17 "2011-04-01T05:54:17Z")
> [@j66](#): > > Does a majority of people who speak Irish speak English? Yes. Many grew up bilingual, some learned English at school; a few older people have difficulty speaking English, and some speak no English at all - but they’re usually pretty elderly. The one who amazed me the most was my ex’s uncle, who managed to live and work for 16 years in England without picking up more than about 20 words in English. It may be more instructive to translate the phrase as “kiss my arse” rather than “ass”, to remove any ambiguity. It’s a very well-known phrase, and is where the group The Pogues got their name. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/18 "2011-04-01T06:02:36Z")
> [@ruadh](#): > > It means “ass” as in buttocks. There are no donkey-like connotations at all according to my dictionary. But am I not right that “asal” carries the same three-way meaning as “ass” in English? So the linkage between buttocks and donkey would be _understood_ from the Irish side? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/19 "2011-04-01T06:23:40Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > But am I not right that “asal” carries the same three-way meaning as “ass” in English? So the linkage between buttocks and donkey would be _understood_ from the Irish side? No. Any arse = ass pun comes via English. In Irish _asal_ is only ever the animal. _Tóin_ (_thóin_ in the phrase _mo thóin_) is no kind of animal, though an _asal_ (donkey) has a _tóin_ (rump). Enough Irish are familiar with English, and _asal_ sounds enough like asshole / arsehole, to make a bilingual pun, but it doesn’t work in Irish alone. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/20 "2011-04-01T06:28:50Z")
Okay. I was pretty sure that the linkage I described was referenced in _Last of the Donkey Pilgrims_ (though O’Hara is firm that _his_ donkey is no fool)… but I may have mixed it up somehow. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703.md?page=2)