Leslie Gadallah wrote:
> I'm sorry, I can't do this in the Gaelic--somehow I've managed to
> avoid acquiring the vocabulary needed to speak about the language.
A Leslie,
As someone who barely has a vocabulary of grammatical terms in English, I will cast
no stones! ;)
> Anyway, I guess I should have done a bit more work before picking up
> a phrase I hadn't seen before. MacLennan has no entry in the English to
> Gaelic for "ignore", which would be in keeping with what you were saying
> about using a negative statement. For disregard (n) he has "dėmeas,
> tarcuis, beag spéis". For disregard (v), "dčan dėmeas air" only.
> However, when I look in the G to E section, the definition of dėmeas
> (n,m) is "disrespect, contempt, reproach." This self-contradiction is
> not an unusual state of affairs for this dictionary. Someday I hope to
> find a decent English to Gaelic book.
I hear there are several dictionaries in the works, and the best, according to what
I've heard, will be one by Colin Mark, due out in a year or so. I'm looking forward
to that.
> Thank you for the proper phrases. They will go into my list, and
> hopefully I won't make _this_ particular mistake again.
I don't mean to say that the phrase you used is definitely wrong; perhaps it is
commonly used in some places. I just haven't heard it before, and I understood it in
a different way from what you intended.
I've heard a fair bit of criticism of Thomson's dictionary in terms of it's accuracy
of meanings, but I've never actually looked through it, so I'm just going be
hearsay. I gave away my MacLennan's. I found it really wanting. What kind of
dictionary includes the word "sacerdotal" and excludes "tomorrow"?????
I'm extremely lucky to have an ancient dictionary printed in 1845 that works very
well for everything up until that time. For more recent words, I find Stordata to be
quite good. I don't have the url for Stordata, but a search engine will find it for
you if you type it in.
Cha shėn duine ach mar a leigeas aodach.
Won't stretch a person but as will-allow (his) clothing.
A person can only stretch as far as his clothing allows.
-sean-fhacal samhlachail, freagarrach do 'n chųis seo, tha mi creidsinn.
proverb symbolic, suitable to the matter this, am I thinking.
a symbolic, suitable proverb for this case, I think.
Le meas,
Aonghas
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