Craic
- Thread starter snipmint
- Start date
You are correct that craic means fun.
I believe that this question is another way of asking how someone is doing, or if they are having a good time.
I believe that this question is another way of asking how someone is doing, or if they are having a good time.
Hello snipmint, and welcome to WordReference.
Here is where those who don't fully understand craic might run into some difficulty. Craic is a complicated concept that goes far beyond fun and includes good company and the pleasure taken in it.
Any craic with you?
Do you have any news, or indeed gossip, or failing that, a good story or two, such that you might entertain us all?
Here is where those who don't fully understand craic might run into some difficulty. Craic is a complicated concept that goes far beyond fun and includes good company and the pleasure taken in it.
Any craic with you?
Do you have any news, or indeed gossip, or failing that, a good story or two, such that you might entertain us all?
A side question for all the Irish folk:
Is craic pronounced in a different way from crack, or is it just spelt differently?
Is craic pronounced in a different way from crack, or is it just spelt differently?
As far as I can tell, there is no difference - confirmed by a quick look on an Irish Forum that I lurk in from time to time. But crack pronounced by those who know how to pronounce craic does not sound the same as crack pronounced by someone from Surrey.
So if you assume that craic sounds like crack said by someone with an Irish accent, you should be OK.
Cheers Panji,
Although my question was not well put, you gave me the answer I was looking for: Irish people pronounce craic and crack in the same way, which is however different from how English people would pronounce it.
"Let's have a bit crack" in north England usually means "let's have a gossip" or a frindly chat , I imagine that crack a joke has the same origins
Since this thread has been pointed at by some hallion in another thread (Crack a joke - why do we say this?), it seems a good idea to incorporate a couple of points about craic that were made as asides elsewhere.
This concept was known in my part of the world as crack, and spelt crack, for many years before it was hijacked by various tourist-promoting organisations and became craic.
There is, indeed, a considerable volume of discussion and indeed substantial heat generated in the war of words between the Irish Irish and the Scots Irish as to whether it began as craic (Irish Irish) or as crack (Scots Irish). Typical examples HERE and HERE with links to other discussions.
... or see Craic - the Wiki entry that explains the distaste for the pseudo-Irish craic "[T]he spelling craic causes serious nausea among intelligent people. This glib spelling of the word was invented in the 1970s ...")
This concept was known in my part of the world as crack, and spelt crack, for many years before it was hijacked by various tourist-promoting organisations and became craic.
There is, indeed, a considerable volume of discussion and indeed substantial heat generated in the war of words between the Irish Irish and the Scots Irish as to whether it began as craic (Irish Irish) or as crack (Scots Irish). Typical examples HERE and HERE with links to other discussions.
... or see Craic - the Wiki entry that explains the distaste for the pseudo-Irish craic "[T]he spelling craic causes serious nausea among intelligent people. This glib spelling of the word was invented in the 1970s ...")
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Well, I must admit I was fair-what-gobsmacked to find out that it's as English as (erm) Irish-themed pubs. On which subject: about a dozen years ago I went a few times (when there was no decent paint drying to watch at home) to an Irish pub in ~ where else? ~ the depths of post-industrial Lancashire. That pub was called The Craic i' th'Wall, which always sounded to me like a mishmash of pure Irish (Gaelic) and Lanky Twang. It had all the atmosphere of a wake, only without the free-flowing booze, music, noise, brawling, etc. It didn't last.
('Hallion'? Who can he mean?)
('Hallion'? Who can he mean?)
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Craic in that spelling didn´t come into English use till the late 1970s when the spelling was deliberately encouraged to differentiate it from crack, heroin.
Craic in that spelling didn´t come into English use till the late 1970s when the spelling was deliberately encouraged to differentiate it from crack, heroin.
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That is a strange rumour posted in Wiki.
Isn't crack cocaine, not heroin?
Crack is still crack, spelt that way, for many of us in the land where it is indigenous.
Craic is a mild form of crack developed in the 1970s for tourists (date according to the OED, purpose according to me).
Crack as a term related to cocaine came along much later (according to the OED).