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Commonplace Thoughts of a Residual Welshman: The Multi-culti Irish

st-patricks-dayThere is nothing sweeter to a Welshman than confusion about the Irish, especially when the confusion comes from the president of the United States, the vice president of the United States (though only a little, in the case of Mr. Pence) and, best of all, from the speaker of the house, because he is actually of Irish descent—nothing sweeter: nid oes unrhyw beth felysach to Cymro. And in this sweetness, the Irish turn out to be rather multi-culti; a bit Irish, a bit Nigerian, and a wee bit Scot.

Why? Well, it stems, I suppose, from the irrational rivalry between the Welsh and the Irish, a contest that we Welsh have pretty much never won. Of course, despite their endless rivalrly, the Welsh and Irish have often been united. Who could forget the Battle of Banbridge, the 100th anniversary of which approaches in July four ywelsh flag blowingears hence? Then Welsh and Irish stood firm against the Scots and English, achieving Irish independence. But not Welsh independence. And that is why, I suppose, the Welsh love it when President Trump gets an “Irish” proverb so hilariously wrong.

What did President Trump do this time, you might be wondering, if you haven’t been following the “Irish in the News” section of your local paper. Well, according to David Quinn of People magazine, in the midst of the visit of Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny to Washington D.C., Mr. Trump quoted (properly in a speech, not a nattering via twittering) an apparently allegedly Irish proverb:

“As we stand together with our Irish friends, I’m reminded of a proverb—and this is a good one, this is one I like. I’ve heard it for many, many years and I love it.”[1]

shamrocksThis was particularly poignant as Mr. Quinn tells it, because there were no less than twenty reporters from Ireland stationed nearby. There was the annual Shamrock Ceremony, during which the American president ritualistically receives a gift bowl of shamrocks. Then, having accepted the gift, the president is called upon, of course, to say a few words. This is when Mr. Trump’s speech went off the rails, so to say, for he cited not an Irish proverb but the second stanza of a poem, “Remember to Forget,” by a Nigerian poet (Albashir Adam Alhassan), of which I quote the first two stanzas here:

Always remember to forget,

The things that make you sad,

But never forget to remember,

The things that make you glad.

Always remember to forget

The friends that proved untrue,

But never forget to remember

Those that have stuck by you.

Ironically, Mr. Alhassan, according to NBC News (in an article by Mary O’Hara and Alexander Smith[2]) is a Muslim. So, how did Mr. Trump go from Ireland to Nigeria, from the celebration of the legacy of a Christian evangelist such as St. Patrick to the gentle but certainly not Irish words of Mr. Alhassan? Can’t answer that one.

While Mike Pence’s “Top of the Morning,” spoken to a select audience representing Ireland at a breakfast that he was hosting at his residence to honor the Irish, drew the overly sensitive twittering response of an Irish journalist by the name of Órla Ryan, who stated in all caps that the expression is not used, still the more hilarious bit came from another Ryan, our very own speaker of the house, who attributed golf to the Irish (when every real golfer knows that it is a Scottish game in origin).

What lessons can we learn about ourselves—whether we are Irish or Welsh or Nigerian or something altogether different—from this series of ridiculous missteps on St. Patrick’s Day? First, perhaps, we can learn to lighten up. We live in an age when everyone takes everything and everyone else (and themselves!) so seriously. Good gracious, can we learn to be gracious again? Second, maybe we should learn some real Irish proverbs, for some are quite wonderful; even a Welshman will admit that. Try this one, a beautiful and no doubt somewhat familiar Irish blessing:

May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.[3]

That’s a nice one, and would have been even nicer than the quote from Mr. Alhassan’s poem. But if Mr. Trump was feeling grouchier, he could instead, had he done his homework, have cited a much stronger verse, also quite Irish, one that doesn’t remember to forget but actually remembers not to forget:

May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children chase you so far over the hills of Damnation that the Lord himself can’t find you with a telescope.[4]

That’s a lot firmer, as it were, than what Mr. Trump actually said. And given the world in which we live perhaps more appropriate.

But enough of citing missteps that were intended to honor the Irish and making fun of the Irish for it. Let’s close with one more Irish proverb, a good one—multi-culti as it spans all cultures (at least where potatoes grow)—and kind, to boot: “It’s easy to halve the potato where there’s love.” I like that one.

And now, to quote the vice president, “Top of the morning to you!”

irishpoem

[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-head-scratching-proverb-more-175229251.html

[2] http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/did-trump-s-irish-proverb-come-nigerian-muslim-poet-n734896

[3] http://www.marksquotes.com/Irish/proverbs.html

[4] http://www.marksquotes.com/Irish/proverbs.html

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Commonplace Thoughts of a Residual Welshman: On the Age-old Esoteric Question of Ellipsis vs. Aposiopesis

johann-strauss
Johann Strauss II

High-brow dinner parties can be wonderful events. I was at one lately and, of course, it boasted a rich variety of conversations. One such exchange verged, typically so, toward Johann Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus” overture. “Did you know that a fledermaus is a bat?” The wrong answer is “Of course, I speak German.” The right answer is “Yes, I think I heard that somewhere. Even though I speak some German, ‘bat’ is obviously a word not in my normal lexicon, though now that I think about it, I once saw a bat in Berlin.” Something to that effect. The city of Berlin offers a springboard to orchestrate a retreat from Strauss, should one so desire, or at least to allow you to move the conversation in a direction that will allow you not to seem arrogant but to seem as dillettantish as the next man, which is a welcome idea at most such dinner parties. (As an aside, n.b. that “Die Fledermaus” is sometimes translated in English rather freely as “The Bat’s Revenge,” which reminds me of a friend of mine who is a college professor of literature. He calls on his students when they are not paying attention even for a millisecond. But that’s off the topic—a tangent to bring a smile to my teaching friend’s face and those of his students, should they happen to read this.)

But this blog isn’t to be about “Die Fledermaus” per se or even about Johann Baptist Strauss II, who is more famous, of course, for “The Blue Danube” and less famous, at least stateside, for “Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka.” Indeed, he is not know as the “Polka King,” but as the “Waltz King,” and his waltzes greatly enriched nineteenth-century Viennese culture.

Indeed, to listen to this waltz, whose full formal name in the German tongue is “An der schönen blauen Donau,” transports one back to a gentler and, at the same time, more sophisticated milieu. That age easily outstrips culturally the aforementioned dinner party, to which we should, however, now return.

baked-raclette“Yes, Strauss, one of my favorite composers,” someone else added. Then there was some commentary on the baked raclette cheese dish, bestrodden, as it was, by two rows of dainty water crackers, which arrangement was incongruously grouped with a strong Irish chesse on the same serving board. After the curdish ellipse/cheddar chatter, the conversation returned to Stauss momentarily when someone stated knowledgeably that Johann Strauss II was unrelated to Richard Strauss, who was a younger contemporary, not Austrian, but German, harking from Munich, a city quite near the Austrian border but at some remove from Vienna. This Strauss, of course, composed many an opera, as well as symphonic poems, among the most famous of which is “Also sprach Zarathustra.”

richard-strauss
Richard Strauss

And then the conversation took a very strange, and for a moment less than highbrown turn, for somehow we jumped from Zarathustra to President Trump’s twitter account, particularly to a recent proclamation that he issued via that medium: “I will be speaking at 9:00 A.M. today to Police Chiefs and Sheriffs and will be discussing the horrible, dangerous and wrong decision…. [8 Feb 7:04 AM].”

Gott sei Dank, the conversations did not, you will be glad to learn, explore the content of the president’s brief missive but only the form, for the person who brought it up claimed that the words offered an ellipsis.

aeolus
Aeolus

“An ellipsis,” I chimed in, hoping to ensure that the conversation would not devolve to fustian political squabbling, “technically requires two parts. This statement, incoherent as it seems, is technically an aposiopesis—you know,” I said, “like in the famous speech of Neptune to the raging winds of Aeolus in the first Aeneid.”

“I don’t understand,” said another interlocutor. “I thought an ellipsis was … ,” and she broke off.

“No,” I said, “that’s an aposiopesis.”

“What is?” she queried.

“What you just did. Your words about what an ellipsis might be just tailed off. That’s aposiopesis. An ellipsis is, well,” I said, “like Strauss interrupted by baked raclette and Irish cheddar.”

“I never thought of it that way,” she said.

Then we had a good laugh about cheese and twitter, Strauss II and the German Strauss, and we indulged again in the baked raclette, which by then had grown cold. And that is way, I think I enjoy high-brow dinner parties, for where else could you find “The Blue Danube,” an assortment of cheese, and rhetorical devices, all working together with a view to ….

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