Irish English: mich

Thomas1

Thomas1

Senior Member
polszczyzna warszawska
With Leo Dillon and a boy named Mahony I planned a day's miching.
(James Joyce, Dubliners, Encounter http://www.powzone.com/joyce/dublin/dublin2.htm)

Am I right in my supposition that the bolded piece means a day’s bunking off (school)?
Does this world still exist in everyday Irish English?
Do you use it (or was it used) as a verb as well, as in: they miched yesterday and last Tuesday my classes?

If the word exists in other versions of English please let me know that too.:)


Thanks in advance,
Thomas
 
    • It certainly existed as a verb when I was at school.
    ... caught mitching again.
    ... off mitching today.
    ... mitched geography.
    ... they mitched my classes yesterday.
    ... I think I'll mitch last period and go swimming.
    ... I think I'll mitch off early.

    Is it Irish?
    OED agrees with you, British Regional and Irish.

    It was used by Father Ted, so it must be current enough for use in a relatively recent TV comedy series.
     
    Thank you very much panjandrum.:)

    I have some additional questions; is there any difference if I say
    they miched my classes yesterday
    and
    they miched off my classes yeaterday?

    Is it possible to say they miched from my classes yeaterday?
     
    We always used it as "mitch" when I was a mitcher.

    It may be Hiberno-English now, but Shakespeare has it in one of his works as "miching mallecho", as far as I can remember (and I don't have access to my regular reference works at the minute) - it may be Hamlet.

    We didn't "mitch off" we went "on the mitch" or we just "mitched".
    As school was the only place to do this from it was tautologous (but we didn't know that, we were mitching the day they did tautology) to say "mitch school" or to put school into any sentence with mitch.

    I don't think teachers used the expression about us, and couldn't comment on "They mitched off my class".
    We rarely had the same teacher twice in the one day so a teacher wouldn't know if a pupil was mitching all day or was genuinely absent, or even if they were absent for only their class.
     
    Thomas1 said:
    Thank you very much panjandrum.:)

    I have some additional questions; is there any difference if I say
    they miched my classes yesterday
    and
    they miched off my classes yeaterday?

    Is it possible to say they miched from my classes yeaterday?
    Click to expand...
    Please bear in mind that of course I never did this, and that mitch doesn't exactly have a well-established formal usage pattern. It wasn't the kind of thing they taught us in English Language classes - when we were there (oops).

    But I think only the first of your examples would be normal.
     
    This thread is just the kind of thing I love about these forums. Where else would I learn a word like this?

    Just one question--why do the Irish (or English?) have more words for cutting class (The AE version even sounds flat when it's written) than Americans do. Is this type of thing more of an art in Ireland, or are the Irish just more inventive and playful with words? :)
     
    Just one question--why do the Irish (or English?) have more words for cutting class (The AE version even sounds flat when it's written) than Americans do. Is this type of thing more of an art in Ireland, or are the Irish just more inventive and playful with words? :)
    Click to expand...

    But let us not forget "playing hooky", although to play hooky is not to miss just one class, but to ditch school for the entire day.


    Edited because I am learning how to use that quote thingy.
     
    Thanks,:) ewhite. My faith in AE is restored :D I forgot about "playing hooky."
     
    Calming down my national pride for a moment, the English and Irish have a multi-cultural resource to call upon when it comes the time to develop a new word for something.

    It also seems to be part of our Irish culture, in particular, to enjoy, admire and reward creative use of language.

    Please read these comments as written, with whimsical smile.
     
    ... and of course we can never remember the last word we used for whatever it was, so the ability to invent a new word, and to understand the meaning of another's new word, is passed on in the genes ...

    It's how we manage to hide the power of Celtic intuition and the ability of any true Celt to read minds.

    Aw sh:t.

    Where did that bloody cat go?
     
    rsweet said:
    This thread is just the kind of thing I love about these forums. Where else would I learn a word like this?

    Just one question--why do the Irish (or English?) have more words for cutting class (The AE version even sounds flat when it's written) than Americans do. Is this type of thing more of an art in Ireland, or are the Irish just more inventive and playful with words? :)
    Click to expand...

    In my part of Australia we call it "wagging".

    You could say "I'm wagging school" or simply "I'm wagging".
    If you wag, you're away all day.

    If you miss a class, you can say "I ditched Mrs Smith's maths class."
     
    panjandrum said:
    It's how we manage to hide the power of Celtic intuition and the ability of any true Celt to read minds.
    Click to expand...

    And for us Celts in exile, it helps to have had a granny from Kilfinane, whose expression for anything done completely was what sounded to me like "down to the last bowbee". Imagine my delight and surprise when I discovered that a bawbee was a halfpenny. My granny talked like a pirate!
     
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