Culture

In a Word ... glossary

This week’s offering comes with a sincere health warning for sensitive souls

A brief ‘shemozzle’ during the Kilkenny SHC semi-final last September between Dicksboro and O’Loughlin Gaels. A ‘shemozzle’ is a level below ‘all hell breaking loose’. Photograph: Inpho

Patsy McGarry's face
Patsy McGarry
Sat Mar 27 2021 - 00:30

A “health warning”. Persons of a sensitive disposition should venture no further. Look up the page where inspiration awaits, or to the left, from where - let’s face it - humiliation casts a cold eye. For what do Simplex or Crosaire represent if not threats to self-esteem?

What follows is an aid to GAA followers who may have become rusty in the vernacular over the past year due to Covid-19 restrictions. It may come in useful when training and games resume.

For what you are about to read, I am grateful to a fellow and esteemed Rossie – there being few of any other kind – who I refrain from naming lest he be damaged by association. With me!

We begin our glossary with “boll*x”, itself a corruption of a more useful word and which refers to any referee at any match. However, “burst the boll*x” is a direction from the sidelines proposing a player from the opposite team be tackled forcefully. But a player’s call of “ya boll*x ya” indicates recognition that an opponent has scored.

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The peculiar “indanameajaysus”, generally used by supporters of both sides, indicates confusion at a referee’s decision. Meanwhile “let it in to f**k would ya?” is exchanged among team mates, as when a full forward calls on a midfielder to pass the ball.

An instruction from the sidelines that a player “lamp” someone proposes that the player tackle aggressively while an observation that a player has taken a “schkelp” out of an opponent means that living tissue has been removed without anaesthetic.

The “crowd” refers to attendance at matches of people, including those on the sidelines, who hope to witness random acts of violence, while “a shemozzle” refers to disagreement on the pitch involving both teams, their goalies and substitutes and, occasionally, supporters of both sides.

This however is not to be confused with “a row” which is an altogether more restrained affair and generally only involves four or more players on the pitch.

Nor, for that matter, should it be confused with “all hell breaks loose” which is a row multiplied, evolving through “a shemozzle” and continuing off the pitch into a nearby car park and even respective dressing rooms. Resolution in this case may involve the gardaí.

Stay safe out there.

Glossary, from Latin glossarium, for a “collected explanations of words”.

inaword@irishtimes.com