Mom Knows Best (Don't Get Her Irish Up)

:: Language Warning :: This blog contains some colorful language, which we all know is a euphemism for cuss words. Trust me, it's not my fault. The language is essential to the story. Blame my mother.

You'll better understand the language warning when I tell you that my mother grew up on the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland. No? Then perhaps I ought to tell you that my relatives have an entirely different relationship with the English language, including the use of profanity, than most of us growing up in the U.S. are accustomed. In Britain, the culture at large has a far greater tolerance for swearing than in the U.S. (When I say the streets of Belfast, I meant that the front entryway of the homes that my mother grew up in often butted against the city sidewalk, which was and may still be common for row houses in the city centre.)

Ach, even within Norn Ireland, the Belfast vernacular is quite distinct. (If you'd like to hear not only the Belfast accent but common colloquialisms, take a wee listen to this actor's Belfast monologue: Anthony Murphy. Murphy could be any one of my male relatives.) The difference between the Irish accent that we Americans are most familiar and the Belfast accent is like the difference between listening to someone from upper New York state and Brooklyn.  Well, my mother had the vernacular and found her city's twang harsh enough that she grew up doing her best to speak with a country lilt. (Perhaps the Northern Irish accent, or Belfast accent in particular, can best be described as a blend of Glaswegian and Irish, given that many Scots settled in the North of Ireland. By Glaswegian, I actually mean influences from a variety of Scots accents... I just like to say the word Glaswegian.)

This other world relationship with language that me Mum had caused me consternation as a child given that I was raised in a time when children and their mothers were supposed to be proper if not prim. Profanity was something a younger person dare not use in front of her elders (my sense is that this is still true for many Americans), and men weren't supposed to use it in front of a lady. Indeed, I was so mortified being raised by a sailor and a woman from Belfast, that I chose not to cuss even outside the presence of adults. I was a decided stick in the mud. Eventually, I unstuck myself and now, I canna tell if my non-public language strikes any sort of balance between proper English and irreverence for the same.

Since coming in the States at 26, my mother's accent and use of the language has changed much from the country-flavored Belfast vernacular of her youth. So much so, that when my cousin was pulled over about 25 years back on a back country road in Northern Ireland, along with her Mum, my Mom, and 'r Aunt Belle, by a band of Irish Republican Army, faces cloaked in hoods with rifles on the ready, my mother, when asked where she was from, had the presence of mind to say, "Canada." Which is another way to say, the Irish are quick, particularly under pressure.

I remember once sitting on a double decker bus outside the football stadium after a game (soccer to us in the States) at the bottom of the Shore Road where my Aunt May lived. The bus was jam packed and people were pissed (drunk) and knackered (tired), but still in high spirits. A fellow popped his head in the door askin' "Is this Carrickfergus?" (meaning, "Will this bus take me to Carrickfergus?"), when from the back of the bus came, "Nooo, it's a bus!" No need to tack on "egit," as that was implied and drew a significant amount of laughter. (Definition for egit.)

You have to know at this point that I'm hearing a Norn Irish inflection on many of the words I'm typing. That's about all I can do. I'm great for hearing and spotting accents, but repeating them? I lack the gift. People typically peg me for having a mid-atlantic accent--not the mid-Atlantic that is a blend between a British and American accent--, but one where I sound like I'm from the middle part of the East Coast of the US on speed. What a D.C. newscaster might sound like if she were speaking way too quickly. (You can blame Asperger's and ADD for my nearly ungovernable rate of speech.) Sometimes people pick up on the fact that my intonation is a bit sing song, particularly when I get going, and that is less brain wiring and more learned patterns of speech that I got from my mother.

When I started school in Maryland, fellow first graders made fun of the way I said car and cow among other words, coming as I did from my first five years in Connecticut with a Northern Irish mum and a Dad from Kansas. Many days I walked home in tears. That's when my mother began in earnest to (1) use the American pronunciation of words and (2) teach me how to speak Maryland. Yes, my mother gave me elocution lessons.

To this day, though I can sometimes hear a Belfast rhythm in my speech, I have no idea whether I pepper my discourse with Northern Irish words and phrasing or not. My mother, on the other hand, well, people tell me that they can hear her Irish accent. "Oh yeah!" they say. Straight away they know she's no Canadian. To me, she has always sounded like Mom. However, I am noticing more and more that as Mom ages her Irish accent and the ways of her youth are becoming more pronounced.

And that's how I discovered that my fears over my mother's ease at dropping profanities if she felt the moment was right did not die with my childhood. They simply went underground, resurfacing when she moved from Maryland to where I live in Virginia, which is a very religiously and politically conservative area. Apparently the Irish lilt works its wonders because when I walked in on her being a complete wise acre with a local plumber I'd called to fix a leak, they were getting on like old chums. He was giving as good as he was getting. As far as he was concerned, she was better than sliced bread. And so it goes; Mom really does know best... for herself, and sometimes, even, for me.

While we Americans have a reputation the world over for being friendly, the people of Northern Ireland are open and engaging. There's nary a stranger that sets foot in their country. People you have never laid eyes on before will call you "Luv" and intrude upon your conversations as if they've been invited and 'av known you for a century or more. They're a warm and fun-loving lot alright, but don't dare cross someone from Northern Ireland--women and men alike. Believe me when I tell you, if you get their Irish up, you'll likely wither from their wit or wrath or both.

My mother is no different and if I had to choose one word to describe her, it'd be feisty (ninja warrior is a phrase that I've oft used). Indeed, my mother can warn people that she's not to be messed with by playfully telling them off and you'd think by looking at her and people's responses that she's doing them a favor. And while she may have come in a small package with a lilting Irish accent, she's no one you'd want to mess with.

Which brings me to getting around to introducing you to my white-haired mother with the dove gray eyes via a story that she relayed to me one day on the phone about a decade ago when she was 73 and still living and working in Maryland.

"I was on my way to work and had come to a stop at the stop sign on Copley where I'd take a left on Post Office Road. And just as I began to pull out a truck came from around a curve on the opposite side of the intersection and barreled through the stop sign without even slowing down. Took the turn and intersection as if it were just part of the curve in the road. I slammed on my brakes, and the truck driver missed hitting my car by just a hair's breadth."

That would not do. He'd got her Irish up.

"So what did you do?" I knew she'd done SOMETHING. She's my mother after all.

"Well, I followed him of course. Honking my horn, blinking my lights, and waiving for him to pull over."

Dear reader you must know at this point in the story that Post Office Road was a hardly developed two-lane road lined by trees. And while very busy at times, at that time of the day, there were not a lot of other cars to be seen.

"So what happened? Did he pull to the side of the road?"

"Yes, he drove onto the shoulder and I pulled over and parked in front of him."

At this point, I'm laughing 'cause there's no telling what my mother would've done next.

"So I get out of my car and he stays in his truck, and so I walk back and find this gruff looking fellow who was old enough to know better, and I says to him, 'Excuse me sir, but were you aware that you ran the stop sign back there and nearly hit my car with your truck? You could have killed me.' And you know what he said to me?" I can hear her hoist herself up to her full 5'2" on the other side of the phone before she carries on.

"He says to me, 'So what do I have here an English bitch?'"

"No,' I says to him, 'That's an Irish bitch to you, and what I have before me is an American asshole.'"

"At that he startled and then snarled, 'What'd you want lady?'"

"And so I say, 'I want an apology.'"

"He cast is eyes down and under his breath he muttered, 'I'm sorry.'"

"And I says to him, 'Sorry for what?'"

"And he says, 'For running the stop sign.'"

"'That's better,' I say. Then I turned on my heel, walked back in my car while he drove off s.l.o.w.l.y."

Now, most people I know would have been lecturing their mothers: "Mom, don't you know people are crazy. You could've been killed. Promise me you won't ever do that again!"

I gave my mother the response she expected because I happen to know few people are crazier than my mother. And I know that my mother would prefer to live in a world where people care about others, take turns, are polite, and give others respect until a person proves that she or he does not deserve the respect so easily extended. She'd prefer to live in a world where a man won't kill you for telling him that he's been out of line or how to mind his manners. You see, Mom knows that without someone putting him in his place that man in the truck would have gone on putting other people's lives at risk, and after his run in with Mom, there's a chance he might think twice. Also, I'd long ago figured out that my Mom would prefer to die while being true to herself, particularly while her Irish was up, than live her life in a state of fear.

Of course, I did go on to tell Mom what I might have said after hearing such a story IF I were some other fictional daughter of hers, but I'm not, and I only recounted advice that neither of us would likely listen to after I said, "Good for you Mom!"


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