“Now”. Such a small phrase and yet so expansive. Though it has many uses and contexts, I associate it most with the Irish mammy. Spoken aloud as she collects herself at the close of one task before beginning to consider the next.
Uttered on a long exhalation countless times in a day filled with such tasks. Or to mark her satisfaction as she knocks something off her to-do list.
I would often hear my mother mutter “now” to herself as she put something she’d baked on the table. A way of verbally icing her achievement. Once, as she stood in the kitchen quietly examining a chocolate cake she’d made (my mother was famous for her chocolate cake), not realising I was standing behind her, she followed the “now” with an “I’m s**t hot”.
My prim, always correct mother rendered a softly spoken egotist by an excellent cake.
The word ‘now’ is a weapon that Irish people wield as needed. But Australians use it differently
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“Now” can be presented as a sort of offering when sharing a piece of shocking but thrilling news. Your neighbour has been arrested, for example. The one who always wears shorts (even in February) so that just looking at him makes your legs start to ache. Apparently, there was a cannabis farm in a secret bunker under his house. Gardaí raided the place while you were on a weekend in Kilkee. Sure no wonder about the shorts – the house must have been sweltering with the grow lamps. Everyone discusses this dramatic news at luxuriant length. Several neighbours along the road express the obligatory, “I knew there was something off about that lad all along”, completing the ritual of collectively processing bad and exciting news, and then there is a lull. A pause.
The person who originally offered the information looks meaningfully at everyone. “Now”, they say. “Now for you.” Everyone nods sagely.
Or it’s a chastisement. Irish people don’t lean into a “now now!” when castigating a sandwich-stealing dog or attempting to upbraid a churlish adolescent quietly seething at how pointless and stupid everyone else in the family is over dinner. The double utterance feels a bit camp, a bit affected, and consequently insufficiently excoriating. Just the one will usually do it. The eyes glint over with incredulity. The chin retracts into the neck like a tortoise going home to himself. The head tilts. The “now!” which results from this rearrangement of one’s head is an expression of weary distaste directed at someone who is presumed to know better. Get in line. Pipe down. Cop on for yourself.
Someone, canine, human or otherwise, is pushing their luck. If the situation is dire, and a whole wedding cake rather than a sandwich has been pilfered, or the adolescent has shifted from looking contemptuous to audibly scoffing at the Christmas table as auntie Bridie shares her tragic life story, an “Ah now!” may ensue. Here is the thinnest of ice. Both an expostulation and a warning. It says, “you fool” and “you chancer” and “were you dragged up?”. It says, “stop making a show of yourself and, consequently, the rest of us” as you prize a delicate white triangle of egg mayonnaise from the jaws of a goofy looking doodle with colon problems by the name of Christopher. “Ah now. Christopher you can’t keep pulling this sort of gobshitery. €400 at the vet last time. Would you just accept that dairy is your Jaysus kryptonite? You’ll be down for the day… now.”
Or my favourite now is the now that means decidedly not precisely now. The one that bends time to its own grammatical will, and understandably baffles anyone who, coming in from outside the Irish colloquial lexicon, has the sense to try and take you literally. “I’ll do that now in a minute.” “Where was that beach we went to now last summer? The one in Kerry.” “Why would you be going on a second date with that eejit now and he sending DMs to half your Pilates class in September?”
“Now” is a sentence. A statement. A cryptic verse.
It is a weapon that Irish people wield as needed. Like most Irish people, I keep this weapon holstered most of the time. I use it when deadly force is needed, or when I’ve just finished folding all my towels and am getting ready to send a few emails. Or when, for example, I’m writing this very column but decide (approximately here) to stop and make a nice cup of tea. Now.
“Now” does not wield the same sacred power in Australia. I use it with my English husband, who lived in Ireland long enough to absorb its value. Though he uses the very British “right!” on finishing a task and before beginning another, which reminds me that while we may love one another, we are ancient enemies really. In Australia, “now” is the time that is the present time. It’s not a threat or a sense of internal satisfaction or verbal evidence of transitioning between the last task and the next. As far as I can tell a year-plus into Australian life, now is just “now” here, though there are plenty of rich local uses of language that we don’t share at home.
[ Laura Kennedy: Australians respond differently to nature compared to Irish peopleOpens in new window ]
For a short while, I was baffled by “too easy”, which I’ve learned is the Australian equivalent of our “no bother” or “grand”. I’d ask the guy behind the pharmacy counter for some eye drops and he’d hand them to me, merrily saying “too easy!” and I’d think “what a strange thing to be so arrogant about”. But really, Australians are quite like us in this way. When they say something that means, “I didn’t inconvenience myself to help you”, they really mean “you did not inconvenience me. I am happy to help you.”
Like us, sometimes they talk in a way that is a few feet to the left or right of what they are literally saying. It’s not quite “now”, but I’ll tell you this much – it can be a comfort now when you’re far from home.
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