Comments on: Making a hames of it

By: OR Melling

OR Melling — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:36:38 +0000

Cinnte. But I think Slanguage, HIberno-English dictionaries, language blogs et al should put “origin unknown” – as Collins do for the American word ‘patsy’ though I would suggest it also relates to an Irish name – instead of randomly proposing this pluralised English harness word which has no relation whatsoever to the meaning or use of ‘hames.’

By: Stan

Stan — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:14:41 +0000

OR: That's all true, and you make a good case. I like the idea of the word coming from Séamus, but I'm not qualified to make the call. The definite etymology, for now, remains elusive.

By: OR Melling

OR Melling — Thu, 16 May 2013 23:11:39 +0000

Right, both Bernard Share’s Slanguage and Terence Patrick Dolan’s Dictionary of Hiberno-Engish back up your suggestion, but I am not convinced; chiefly because ‘hame’ is an English word (from old Dutch and German) and the English themselves have never used it this way. Logically, anything that is used solely by the Irish – e.g. twig, meaning ‘to understand’- is far more likely to have come from the Irish language. And, of course, the same word or word sound can coincidentally exist in different languages without having any relation to each other.

By: Stan

Stan — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:32:36 +0000

Thanks for your visit, OR, and for the interesting etymological suggestion. I find it more unlikely than the difficult-harness proposal, but without conclusive evidence, who’s to say for sure.

By: OR Melling

OR Melling — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:57:18 +0000

ps love the idea of your blog. I’ll follow.

By: OR Melling

OR Melling — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:54:54 +0000

I dunno. I think the harness idea is a long and unlikely shot. I suspect it’s one of those Hiberno-English concoctions like hooligan and shenanigan, arising from the name Seamus (used for detective I believe in America) playing on ‘shame’ and the ‘mus/mess’ and perhaps even the vocative of ‘a Sheamus’ (sp?) which turns that s into a ‘h’ i.e. sounds like ‘a hame-ish.’ Will check out my Hiberno-English dictionary when I get home. Back shortly …

By: This Week’s Language Blog Roundup: Election, WOTY, and terrifying origins | Wordnik

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 15:27:27 +0000

[...] Carey served up the origin of the word treacle, and on his own blog did not make a hames of the word hames. He also had some fun with the Fargo [...]