omadon

[corm...@nbnet.nb.ca]

My mother's family (almost pure Irish, 5 generations in Canada) uses the
expression omadon (phonetic spelling) or omadon-galoot.

It means fool or nincompoop.

I always figured it was Gaelic, but I once read something that indicated it
might be Romany, though why my family would preserve a Romany word when we
aren't Romany I don't understand.

Anyone else out there ever heard of omadon?

[Mark Israel]

In article <3e2f3j$t...@darwin.nbnet.nb.ca>, corm...@nbnet.nb.ca writes:

> My mother's family (almost pure Irish, 5 generations in Canada) uses the
> expression omadon (phonetic spelling) or omadon-galoot.
>
> It means fool or nincompoop.
>
> I always figured it was Gaelic,

Collins English Dictionary spells it "omadhaun", defines it as "fool",
and derives it from Irish Gaelic _amadan_.

> but I once read something that indicated it might be Romany, though why
> my family would preserve a Romany word when we aren't Romany I don't
> understand.

Well, Collins doesn't say where the Irish got the word from.

> Anyone else out there ever heard of omadon?

Yes, of course! _Ommadawn_ is the name of an album by Mike Oldfield.

--
mis...@scripps.edu Mark Israel

[Veronica Sullivan]

My family used it
too.
I was surprisingly old (but being old is always a surprise,
isn't it?) before it occurred to me that the hated word
must have a spelling.
I've seen attribution (by C.J.Cherry, SF writer)
to an older Gaelic "aodhan," meaning "rascal." The
word seems to be the opposite of euphemism (dysphemism?)
since it has become more of a slap in the face.
BTW, it's one of very few words that can still get my goat.
No kidding.

ron

[toco...@peg.apc.org]

From: Terry OConnor <toconnor>

>> My mother's family (almost pure Irish, 5 generations in Canada) uses the
>> expression omadon (phonetic spelling) or omadon-galoot.
>>
>> It means fool or nincompoop.
>>
>> I always figured it was Gaelic,
>

> Collins English Dictionary spells it "omadhaun", defines it as "fool",
>and derives it from Irish Gaelic _amadan_.

Brings back memories. I didn't pick it from the header - omadon - because
the Gaelic pronunciation is something like ommadawn.

The Collins spelling - omadhaun - is in part "modern" Gaelic, ie the h after
the d signifies a bualte (pron boolcha), which used to be indicated by a dot
over the affected consonant. This often changes pronunciation, so m bualte
is usually pronounced v.

The -aun is a version of a (acute accent) n. The accent in Gaelic is called
a fada (pron fodda) which means "long".

To change threads slightly, Gaelic (or at least Irish Gaelic; I'm unsure
about Scottish Gaelic) has no formal words for "yes" and "no". One is
supposed to answer a question with the verb used by the questioner.

So if Fred says: "Has it stopped raining?" Mary should reply: "It has" or
"It has not".

In practice, the verb "to be" is used (sea = is/yes; ni hea = is not/no).

Are there any other languages that have this odd convention?

Cheers, Terry O'Connor
<cogito ergo, um><toco...@peg.apc.org><ergo I am, I think>

[Harlan Messinger]

toco...@peg.apc.org wrote:
: To change threads slightly, Gaelic (or at least Irish Gaelic; I'm unsure

: about Scottish Gaelic) has no formal words for "yes" and "no". One is
: supposed to answer a question with the verb used by the questioner.

: So if Fred says: "Has it stopped raining?" Mary should reply: "It has" or
: "It has not".

: In practice, the verb "to be" is used (sea = is/yes; ni hea = is not/no).

: Are there any other languages that have this odd convention?

At least a couple. In Chinese, "Ni renshi wo de jiejie ma?" ("Do you know
my [elder] sister?") is answered "Renshi" or "Bu renshi" ("I know" or "I
don't know"). There is an emphatic "shi", which is just the copulative
"to be", that can be used to insist: "Shi, wo renshi" ("YES, I know your
sister!").

Portuguese has "sim" and "na~o", but it's more common to repeat the verb,
preceded by "na~o" for the negative.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------
There is no such thing as bad data, only data from bad homes.

[toco...@peg.apc.org]

From: Terry OConnor <toconnor>

>> My mother's family (almost pure Irish, 5 generations in Canada) uses the
>> expression omadon (phonetic spelling) or omadon-galoot.
>>
>> It means fool or nincompoop.
>>
>> I always figured it was Gaelic,
>

> Collins English Dictionary spells it "omadhaun", defines it as "fool",
>and derives it from Irish Gaelic _amadan_.

Brings back memories. I didn't pick it from the header - omadon - because
the Gaelic pronunciation is something like ommadawn.

The Collins spelling - omadhaun - is in part "modern" Gaelic, ie the h after
the d signifies a bualte (pron boolcha), which used to be indicated by a dot
over the affected consonant. This often changes pronunciation, so m bualte
is usually pronounced v.

The -aun is a version of a (acute accent) n. The accent in Gaelic is called
a fada (pron fodda) which means "long".

To change threads slightly, Gaelic (or at least Irish Gaelic; I'm unsure

about Scottish Gaelic) has no formal words for "yes" and "no". One is
supposed to answer a question with the verb used by the questioner.

So if Fred says: "Has it stopped raining?" Mary should reply: "It has" or
"It has not".

In practice, the verb "to be" is used (sea = is/yes; ni hea = is not/no).

Are there any other languages that have this odd convention?

Cheers, Terry O'Connor

[Pierre Jelenc]

In article <547200055@peg>, <toco...@peg.apc.org> wrote:
>From: Terry OConnor <toconnor>

>
>To change threads slightly, Gaelic (or at least Irish Gaelic; I'm unsure
>about Scottish Gaelic) has no formal words for "yes" and "no". One is
>supposed to answer a question with the verb used by the questioner.
>
>So if Fred says: "Has it stopped raining?" Mary should reply: "It has" or
>"It has not".
>
>In practice, the verb "to be" is used (sea = is/yes; ni hea = is not/no).
>
>Are there any other languages that have this odd convention?

All Celtic languages. And Latin, which explains why the Romance languages
invented three different ways to say "yes".

Pierre
--
Pierre Jelenc If you have the choice between humble and cocky, go with
rc...@panix.com cocky. There's always time to be humble later, once you've
been proven horrendously,irrevocably wrong.
http://www.columbia.edu/~pcj1/ Kinky Friedman

[annema...@googlemail.com]

Both are correct! It is both Irish and roma. I am descended from Irish Travellers who are, in fact Roma. Irish Romo still exist and still lead a caravan existence in Ireland. They were formerly known as Irish gypsies but as you probably know the word Gypsy has fallen out of usage as it is a racial slur.

[soup]

On 17/03/2019 02:59, annema...@googlemail.com wrote:
> Both are correct! It is both Irish and roma. I am descended from Irish Travellers who are, in fact Roma. Irish Romo still exist and still lead a caravan existence in Ireland.

Not to be confused with any of Mike Oldfield's output.

[obu...@gmail.com]

[obu...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, December 31, 1994 at 12:13:48 AM UTC-5, corm...@nbnet.nb.ca wrote:

My mother also Irish used to call me that also-- whenever I did something she didn't like-- I decided to look up see if there was such a word and found your post--2/10/20

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

I've searched online and found this for the Irish word "amadán" meaning
"fool":
https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-meaning-of/irish-word-de7d6e3cc31930cd180b241ab67a1155dfdff6a5.html

This says:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/English_as_we_speak_it_in_Ireland/XIII

Amadaun, a fool (man or boy), a half-fool, a foolish person.
Irish amadán, a fool

The OED has this definition of "galoot":

2. ‘An awkward or uncouth fellow: often used as a term of
good-natured depreciation’ ( Standard Dict.). Originally U.S.

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Katy Jennison]

IIRD 'galoot' is a friendly word to call someone who's done something
silly, in Arthur Ransome's 'Swallows & Amazons' and others. The OED
says under 1 that it's nautical slang, and I fancy that's the sense AR
had in mind, since the characters who say it were from a nautical family.

--
Katy Jennison

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Mon, 10 Feb 2020 22:35:58 +0000, Katy Jennison
<ka...@spamtrap.kjennison.com> wrote:

>On 10/02/2020 22:19, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
>> On Mon, 10 Feb 2020 13:56:29 -0800 (PST), obu...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> On Saturday, December 31, 1994 at 12:13:48 AM UTC-5, corm...@nbnet.nb.ca wrote:
>>>> My mother's family (almost pure Irish, 5 generations in Canada) uses the
>>>> expression omadon (phonetic spelling) or omadon-galoot.
>>>>
>>>> It means fool or nincompoop.
>>>>
>>>> I always figured it was Gaelic, but I once read something that indicated it
>>>> might be Romany, though why my family would preserve a Romany word when we
>>>> aren't Romany I don't understand.
>>>>
>>>> Anyone else out there ever heard of omadon?
>>
>> I've searched online and found this for the Irish word "amadán" meaning
>> "fool":
>> https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-meaning-of/irish-word-de7d6e3cc31930cd180b241ab67a1155dfdff6a5.html
>>
>> This says:
>> https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/English_as_we_speak_it_in_Ireland/XIII
>>
>> Amadaun, a fool (man or boy), a half-fool, a foolish person.
>> Irish amadán, a fool
>>
>> The OED has this definition of "galoot":
>>
>> 2. ‘An awkward or uncouth fellow: often used as a term of
>> good-natured depreciation’ ( Standard Dict.). Originally U.S.
>>
>
>IIRD 'galoot' is a friendly word to call someone who's done something
>silly, in Arthur Ransome's 'Swallows & Amazons' and others.

Ah yes. It is highly likely that is where I first met the word galoot.
I read most if not all of the Swallows and Amazons series of books
WIWAL. They were probably the only works of fiction that I read at that
time. I was much more interested in factual books. However, the S&A
books were full of information about how to do things and about human
behaviour.

> The OED
>says under 1 that it's nautical slang, and I fancy that's the sense AR
>had in mind, since the characters who say it were from a nautical family.


--

[Tony Cooper]

On Mon, 10 Feb 2020 22:35:58 +0000, Katy Jennison
<ka...@spamtrap.kjennison.com> wrote:

I seem to remember "galoot" in dialog in the Oaters (Western/cowboy
movies). I can imagine Gabby Hayes saying "Ya big galoot" in a
friendly way.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[Peter Moylan]

On 11/02/20 09:19, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:

> The OED has this definition of "galoot":
>
> 2. ‘An awkward or uncouth fellow: often used as a term of
> good-natured depreciation’ ( Standard Dict.). Originally U.S.

Almost always, in my experience, in the combination "big galoot",
referring to someone who is known for his brawn more than his brains.

I say "his" because I've never heard of a female galoot.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Ross]

I just wanna be a cosmic cowboy,
I just wanna ride and rope and hoot!
I just wannna be a cosmic cowboy,
A supernatural, country-rockin' galoot.

- Michael Martin Murphey (1973)