Click the image below to see the 100 shortlisted (if that’s not an oxymoron) and vote for Sentence first or another blog of your choice:

My Twitter page (@StanCarey) was also selected, so if you’re feeling generous you can vote for me here:

Though I placed respectably last year (see the badges in the sidebar), my expectations in these contests are modest; tireless self-promotion is not my strong point. But they’re a good way to find new language writers, and they’re also an opportunity to welcome new visitors.

Finally, if you’re in a voting or browsing kind of mood, there are also polls for Facebook pages and language-learning blogs. The latter includes Macmillan Dictionary Blog, to which I contribute regular posts.

Ah, the bloom of you, I love your North-Circular-Road-Bicycle-Riding-Cheeks.

It’s a sweet declaration ending in an impressive hyphenated string (though if I were editing it I would separate cheeks from the compound and reduce the capitalisation: North-Circular-Road-bicycle-riding cheeks).

In a modest correspondence between books decades apart, Declan Hughes’s Irish detective novel The Dying Breed has another elaborate compound phrase constructed with the help of bicycle imagery:

I made a face at that, my d’you-think-I-cycled-up-the-Liffey-on-a-bicycle face.

When I tweeted that sentence I was treated to a few variations on the theme: Belfast’s D’you think I floated down the Lagan in a bubble? (@charlieconnelly), and Glasgow’s D’ye think ah came up the Clyde on a water biscuit/banana boat? (@ozalba; @Yanbustone).

There are many versions of this idiom, often beginning Do you think…, You must think…, or I didn’t… More (or less) familiar lines include: Do you think I came down in the last shower?, You must think I was born yesterday, and I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday.

I love the water biscuit one, but for some reason I relate most strongly to cycling on the Liffey – so long as I steer clear of Gogarty’s swans.

Joanie has gone to Jesus to order new flooring for the shop she works in, and Jesus is explaining the sheet approach to her:

‘Installation is slightly easier with the sheeting and therefore cuts down on your labour costs. We would unroll it and cut as we go, from the wall out. However, with a sheet you are stuck with the one colour or print except for the borders which you can be a little creative with, if you like. I mean, with which.’ He coughed.

After a brief exchange about the relative advantages of tiles, Jesus continues:

‘I like to advise customers that the replacement tiles will always be slightly different in shade than – I mean from, sorry – the original because of wear and tear.’

So we have preposition stranding (which you can be creative with vs. with which you can be creative) and idiomatic variation (different than vs. different from) deployed as usage shibboleths which the speaker rewords to present himself more professionally. He code-switches awkwardly and self-consciously.

The author’s use of preposition stranding for this purpose is unremarkable, since it’s one of the best known historical usage disputes, a source of contention ever since John Dryden invented the rule in the 17th century.

Different than as a style peeve is far less notorious, and is therefore more interesting here. If you were asked to name a dozen ways someone might correct their own speech in order to sound more proper, I suspect few would include different than – though it was among the 36 questionable examples in my Usage Peeve Bingo card.

The phrase elicits strong reactions, though, as can be seen in the comments to my post on different from/than/to, where debate over these phrases’ relative acceptability periodically reignites.

Incidentally, I used The Sense of Things in a bookmash last year, and am glad I finally got around to reading it.

We shot some footage with Mick [Jagger] and the little Indian boy who is called McNamara in the film, and both of them did such a good job that the team broke into applause. During the scene Mick was bitten on the shoulder by one of the monkeys and laughed so uproariously about it afterward that it sounded like a donkey braying. Whenever we take a break he distracts me with clever little lectures on English dialects and the development of the language since the late Middle Ages.

Herzog’s book is a darkly poetic account of the director’s protracted attempts to film Fitzcarraldo, the centrepiece of which involves hauling a ship over a mountain in Peru. At one point Herzog, faced with the “obscene, explicit malice of the jungle”, describes feeling “like a half-finished, poorly expressed sentence in a cheap novel.” There are no such sentences in the book, which I highly recommend.

And in case you were wondering: Jagger’s role was later cut from the script, through no fault of his own.

Click to enlarge:

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Cat and Mouse Semantics

Fledgling sense
And sensibility,
Cat and mouse semantics,
Nomad codes,
Walkabout to school
Through the fields
In the land
Of invented languages.

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Thanks to the authors: Octavia Butler, Jane Austen, Günter Grass, F. H. George, Erik Davis, James Vance Marshall, Alice Taylor, Arika Okrent.

More in the bookmash archive. From an idea by Nina Katchadourian.

Barrie wrote Real Grammar before its host pulled the plug; I’ve linked to it here in the past, most recently to his post on the rise of Swiss German dialect. Some of you may also know him from his insightful comments at Sentence first.

Since setting up Caxton and importing his old posts, Barrie has been blogging regularly, offering astute and balanced observations on such subjects as the value of linguistics, the early shapers of English, education, reflexive pronouns, dialects, grammar, and Jacques Brel. Rummage around and you’ll find all sorts of good material.

If you’re interested in the usage, history, politics, and beauty of English – or language generally – I recommend visiting and bookmarking Caxton. I’ve also added it to the links in the sidebar of this blog.

Updates: More thoughts on Caxton: Language Hat wishes it a “long and prosperous career”, while You Don’t Say celebrates “a new voice of sense and informed judgment”.

There are on-screen glosses for the phrases, but because the delivery and editing are rapid-fire – and some of the accents are strong – I’ve added Jenny’s transcript below, with a few tweaks.

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In related news, Jenny is working on a feature-length film comprising more of these videos along with expert interviews and other footage. She’s holding “Phrase Donor Clinics” around Ireland to collect phrases from the public to use in the film.

Jenny is crowdfunding this on Fund it, an Irish Kickstarter-type website, so if you’d like to support this very worthy project, you can. There’s two weeks left to contribute; pledges from €15 up earn a reward, and if funding falls short, you won’t be charged. You can find out more at JennyKeogh.com and on the Story Bud? Facebook page.

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How’s About Ye?

1. Well, what about ye? [Greeting.]

2. Alright there Bosco? [Greeting. (Bosco is a famous children’s TV puppet from the 1980s in Ireland.)]

3. What’s goin’ on yerself? [How are you?]

4. Y’awright Sham? [Alright, friend?]

5. How’s about you? [Greeting.]

6. Hello, well? [Greeting.]

7. Langer, where you goin’ with that? [Fella, what are you doing?]

8. Are yih Musha or are yih from Nenagh? [Are you from Thurles or Nenagh?]

9. Well Horse? [Greeting.]

10. How’s she cuttin’? [How are you?]

11. What part of the parish are you from? [You’re not from around here?]

12. A guard wouldn’t ask me that. [Don’t be so nosy. Guard = Garda (Síochána), literally "guardian(s) of the peace", i.e., police officer.]

13. The feens were reekin’ cos they got caught by the shades. [The lads were annoyed because they got caught by the police.]

14. You’re wha’?

15. I didn’t do nothin’. [I did nothing.]

16. Say nothin’ for a while and then say nothin’ at all. [Say nothing.]

17. There was ructions around the Square last night. [There was trouble around the main square of the town last night.]

18. Chalk it down boy, we were haunted. [For sure, we were really lucky (narrow escape).]

19. You’re an awful yap. [You’re a loudmouth/complainer.]

20. I didn’t say anythin’, so I didn’t. [I said nothing.]

21. Say nothin’ to no one about nothin’ and keep sayin’ it. [Tell no one at all.]

22. C’mere you hai. [Hey you.]

23. Oh for fluck’s sake. [Instead of fuck's.]

24. Have a titter of wit. [Have some sense.]

25. I will yeah. [I won’t.]

26. He’s thick enough for two of them. [He’s stupid.]

27. Thick as a double ditch, that one. [She’s stupid.]

28. She’s pure dry, that one. [She’s boring/dull.]

29. He’s as raw as ropes. [He’s ignorant/simple.]

30. He’s a face on him like a Lurgan spade. [A typically Northern Irish expression also spoken as: face as long as a Lurgan spade, meaning to look miserable or long-faced. One theory about its origin is that a Lurgan spade was an under-paid workman digging what is now the Lurgan Park lake. Another theory is that it's a translation from the Irish lorga spád, meaning the shaft/shin of a spade.]

31. She’s a head on her like Methuselah’s goat. [She’s old looking. See my recent post on the Irish dialectal construction the head on him.]

32. Lamp the gatch on him. [Look at the walk on him.]

33. Yeh wha’?

34. You’re a liúdramán. [You’re an idiot/lazy person. I’ll have a separate post on this mighty word.]

35. He’s a hump on him like an ol’ bow saw. [He has a humped back.]

36. She’s an awful snear. [She’s snide/not to be trusted.]

37. She’s a dirty old clart. [She’s a slob/rude.]

38. Do you like hospital food? [A threat of violence.]

39. You couldn’t be up to her. [She’s hard to handle/wouldn’t be able for her.]

40. Get ’em out. [Be off.]

41. That weather would have you foundered. [It’s very cold.]

42. Raining? ‘Twas millin’ out o’  the heavens. [Very heavy rain.]

43. It’s horrid warm, so it is. [Very warm weather.]

44. It won’t be long now till after a while. [It will be soon.]

45. Would ye take a drop of tea in your hand? [A quick cup of tea.]

46. Put on the purdies. [Start boiling the potatoes.]

47. Hang on there we’ll get the deaths in the Star. [Newspaper for the death notices.]

48. Boys. Are we goin’ gattin’? [Are we going drinking alcohol?]

49. I got steamed in Shoots. [I got drunk in the well-known pub in the town.]

50. I had too much Dwans dwinks dwank. [Dwans was a brewery in Thurles and that was a phrase used.]

51. I nearly cowped up them stairs. [I nearly fell up the stairs.]

52. Oh, my face is on fire with the shame of me. [I’m embarrassed.]

53. I’m like a poisoned pup. [I’m very hungover.]

54. Yeh langer boy. [You fool.]

55. Wha’?

56. The fella has one eye lookin’ at you and one eye lookin’ at himself. [Vain/self-obsessed.]

57. Yeh beaut yeh. [Thanks – you’re brilliant.]

58. Go on, give her the diddie. [Give it welly, i.e., Put effort into it.]

59. Oh aye. [Oh yes.]

60. I didn’t know she was dead until I saw it in the Star.

61. Ah the poor craythur. [The poor person (said with affection/irony). From Irish créatúr.]

62. Boys. I’m batin’ on. [i.e., beating. I’m going home.]

63. No bother.

64. Take her handy. [Take care.]

65. Get outa that garden. [You’re talking rubbish/I don’t believe you.]

[more Hiberno-English posts]