# 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:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/21 "2011-04-01T12:37:29Z")
The Pogues started as Pogue Mahone, but changed their name when someone spread out what it meant in Irish. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_of_Lucan)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/22 "2011-04-01T12:49:37Z")
Just confirm what my Irish colleages have said, and buff it up a bit. \*Tóin \*means arse, buttocks or backside. It means ass only in the rude USAian sense - which derives from the same root as arse. A donkey has a _tóin_ but is called an _asal_ _Póg_ means kiss, both verb and noun. _Mo_ means my. \*Mo \*changes the sound of the following consonant, which is signified by adding h after the consonant. So, the word _tóin_ sounds like “thone”. After _mo_, the initial t becomes th, making it _thóin_ which sounds like “hone”. So, “póg mo thón” means “kiss my ass” in the normal derogatory sense, with no donkeys involved. It’s pronounced roughly “pogue muh hone”. I remember reading a short story years ago by an American author, who named the Irish female character Pogue Mahone. I don’t know if he had been conned by some Irish person, or was playing a trick on his US readers. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/23 "2011-04-01T12:53:20Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > She seriously wants to a waitress in a traditional pub! I accidentally a waitress at a pub, is this bad? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/24 "2011-04-01T13:31:10Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I accidentally a waitress at a pub, is this bad? Only if you her _tóin_. ---
**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, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/25 "2011-04-01T13:52:08Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I accidentally a waitress at a pub, is this bad? Be be be be be 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_of_Lucan)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/26 "2011-04-01T15:16:29Z")
In fairness, if it’s a Dublin waitress and especially one in a traditional pub, anyone would want to. It’s just human nature. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/27 "2011-04-01T17:13:34Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > 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) > > 😉 Another easy phrase - “Hoof hearted? Ice melted.” ---
**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, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/28 "2011-04-01T18:27:44Z")
> [@Michael\_of\_Lucan](#): > > In fairness, if it’s a Dublin waitress and especially one in a traditional pub, anyone would want to. It’s just human nature. Yes to both. She really likes the atmosphere. She talked to a few, and was not at all discouraged. She said a landlady promised to hold her job for a few years until she returned. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/29 "2011-04-01T19:18:05Z")
We should note that ‘ass’ for ‘donkey’ is used much more in Irish English than it is in English English. ‘Ass’ for ‘buttocks’ does not belong in English English at all, nor indeed in Irish English, however the wide spread of American TV makes people here more aware of it than formerly. Study of the Irish language remains compulsory in all schools in the Irish Republic, a fact which did not endear the language to many who were compelled to learn it against their inclinations. The way in which it was taught, often rather heavy-handed, did not foster a liking for it - the memoirs of Peig Sayers, an illiterate peasant women who, in the 1930s, dictated her memories of rural poverty and backwardness to her son, who wrote them down and got them published, featured prominently. Despite the large amounts of public funds poured into nourishing the language since 1922, the number of speakers who are truly fluent continues to decline. ---
**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, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/30 "2011-04-01T23:16:29Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > 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. So the t-shirt is a bilingual visual pun? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2011, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703/31 "2011-04-02T12:12:32Z")
> [@j66](#): > > So the t-shirt is a bilingual visual pun? Trilingual, really, counting American English into the mix. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-irish-whats-this-mean/576703.md?page=1)