Irish: Toin

[gencive]

I would just like to check if 'thoin' is a gaelic word meaning 'ass', I found it to be so on the internet as part of 'pog mo thoin', (excuse my gaelic)but you never know...

 

[maxiogee]

Toin is Irish for 'backside'. Not just the rude interpretation but also the back+side of anything. There is an area in Dublin called Tonlegee which derives from the Irish Toin-le-gaoith back side to the wind. In the expression "póg mo thoin" the genitive case causes the 't' to be muted. The original word toin would be pronounced toyin, but the phrase is pronounced pogue muh hone.

 

[gencive]

well thank you, the context didn't seem to be very rude so I had an inkling it couldn't be just 'ass', thank you very much for the explanations too. I gather than toin would be placed in front of the thing it qualifies:
a thoin gutter

 

[virtdave]

Toin is Irish for 'backside'. Not just the rude interpretation but also the back+side of anything. There is an area in Dublin called Tonlegee which derives from the Irish Toin-le-gaoith back side to the wind. In the expression "póg mo thoin" the genitive case causes the 't' to be muted. The original word toin would be pronounced toyin, but the phrase is pronounced pogue muh hone.

hmmm....does the word pogue (i.e., sailor slang for a cabin-boy, often a sexual toy of the captain) have any relation to this? There was an Irish folk-rock group called The Pogues whose first album was called Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash.

 

[maxiogee]

hmmm....does the word pogue (i.e., sailor slang for a cabin-boy, often a sexual toy of the captain) have any relation to this? There was an Irish folk-rock group called The Pogues whose first album was called Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash.

I can't answer for the sailor slang at the moment - but the band "The Pogues" changed there name to that when the BBC stopped calling them by their original name, which was the full expression. They had been using it unabridged until some spoilsport told someone in authority what it meant!

I don't know if other langauges have phrases which are used to tease foreigners, but until that band became famous foreigners were frequently told that Póg mo thoin meant "pleased to meet you" and other such innocuous statements.

 

[DaleC]

The alternation in Gaelic between 't' [t] and 'th' is one of the mutations in the Celtic languages.

In the expression "póg mo thoin" the genitive case causes the 't' to be muted. mutated

 

[maxiogee]

You may call it 'mutated' but when I speak it I am muting the pronunciation - the 't' is softened.

 

[timpeac]

Moved to other languages since this is about Gaelic.

 

[Brioche]

Toin is Irish for 'backside'. Not just the rude interpretation but also the back+side of anything. There is an area in Dublin called Tonlegee which derives from the Irish Toin-le-gaoith back side to the wind. In the expression "póg mo thoin" the genitive case causes the 't' to be muted. The original word toin would be pronounced toyin, but the phrase is pronounced pogue muh hone.

Lenition is the word for that sort of change.
Often [wrongly] called aspiration.

thoin is not genitive.
The lenition is caused by the possessive adjective mo = my.

my, you (singular) and his give rise to lenition
mo/do/a thoin = my/your/his bum
she does not mutate the consonant
a toin = her bum
our, your (plural) and their cause eclipsis
ár/bhur/a dtoin = our/your/their bum

 

[maxiogee]

So, "lenition; the process or result of weakened articulation of a consonant" shows I was accurate with my softened or muted.

 

[L'irlandais]

I am surprised nobody mentioned the (second) missing accent póg mo thóin

Faoi thoinn = underwater (literally under the waves)
Tóin = backside
Tonn = wave

 

[Assiduous student]

Tón - in traditional Munster Irish. Póg mo thón. I don't know how to answer the question whether this is just a calque from English or not - I mean, did Irish people say this in the 19th century? Irish people were traditionally very Catholic and unlikely to resort to smut.