Gormless

I sometimes watch programmes on TG4, the Irish language broadcaster that posts most shows online. Even though I���m watching with subtitles on, I figure it can���t be bad for keeping my very rudimentary Irish from atrophying completely.

I���m usually watching music programmes but occassionally I���ll catch a bit of the news (or ���nuacht���). Their coverage of the protests in America reminded me of a peculiar quirk of the Irish language. The Black community would be described as ���daoine gorm��� (pronunced ���deenee gurum���), which literally translated would mean ���blue people���. In Irish, the skin colour is referred to as ���gorm������blue.

This isn���t one of those linguistic colour differences like the way the Japanese word ao means blue and green. Irish has a perfectly serviceable word for the colour black, ���dubh��� (pronounced ���duv���). But the term ���fear dubh��� (���far duv���) which literally means ���black man��� was already taken. It���s used to describe the devil. Not ideal.

In any case, this blue/black confusion in Irish reminded me of a delicious tale of schadenfreude. When I was writing about the difference between intentions and actions, I said:

Sometimes bad outcomes are the result of good intentions. Less often, good outcomes can be the result of bad intentions.

Back in 2017, the Geeky Gaeilgeoir wrote a post called Even Racists Got the��Blues. In it, she disects the terrible translation job done by an Irish-American racist sporting a T-shirt that reads:

Gorm Ch��na�� ��bhar.

That���s completely nonsensical in Irish, but the intent behind the words was to say ���Blue Lives Matter.��� Except… even if it made grammatical sense, what this idiot actually wrote would translate as:

Black Lives Matter.

What a wonderful chef���s kiss of an own goal!

If only it were a tattoo.