In a word . . . Patsy McGarry

A delight of this column already is correspondence from readers that enlightens when it comes to understanding the pedigree of a word. One such letter recently prompted remembrance of a line past. That true wit “is nature to advantage dress’d . . .” It enhances the meaning of words, as well as being “. . . what oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d.” The phrase is from English poet Alexander Pope.

Responding to a reference to Hogmanay in this column on December 31st, Mr M G Salter from Kilmacanogue in Co Wicklow wrote how recently, while looking up a dictionary, he saw the word ‘Hogmanay’ “fancifully given as derived from a French dialect word for a present.

He suggests otherwise. That the origin of Hogmanay is in Gaeilge/ Gaelic. He explained: “The Church usually celebrates a second feast a week after a major feast, an octave, and January 1st would be labelled in a Church calendar as ‘the octave of Christmas’ long before it became ‘New Year’s Day’.”

His mother spoke Irish. A daughter of his and her three children live in the Donegal Gaeltacht. All of which prompted him to think, listening to them, that Hogmanay is an Anglicisation of “hOchtu Mean-oiche” or “the eighth-midnight” octave of Christmas night. I have no idea if it’s true, but it should be. It’s ingenious. Thank you Mr Salter.

Then there is the other kind of correspondence from another kind of reader! One who insists I don’t know my “o”s from my “u”s. And following his letter I wouldn’t care if I never saw another “u”.

Despite, maybe because of, troubled years of Latin and Greek at school, it appears I made a hash of epiphany on January 6th last. So he says. Not good enough. In a photocopy of the original, marked with myriad corrections in biro, he pointed out that the word was made up of the classical Greek “epi” and “phaino”, not “epi” and “phano”, as I said; that God was “theus” in classical Greek, not “theos”; that the Greek word is “magos”, not “magus”; that Archimedes displaced his weight in water, not his volume; and that I “had made too many mistakes for a professional journalist.” QED. Ouch!

My instinct was to stretch out both hands and wait for six on each.

For now, I reflect on the precariousness of memory and ponder once more on Beckett’s “Fail again. Fail better.”

inaword@irishtimes.com