I was reminded recently of a word lost in translation by Caoileann, a niece of Sile’s.
Caoileann was being raised in the Gaelteacht in Connemara and her first language was Irish. We met her with her parents one night in the Great Southern Hotel on Eyre Square in Galway about 18 years ago when she was no more than 5 or 6.
Caoileann disappeared from the lounge at one stage only to return, flushed and triumphant after a little while. On enquiry she told us, to our mystification, that she had been having fun on the “Spin”.
We eventually worked it out. She was making a heroic effort to speak English in front of us foreigners and, so understandable when you regard the erratic nature of public transport in Coinnemara at that time, had confused the two English terms for a free ride in someone’s car.
She had of course been having fun on the lift.

Caoileann’s older sister was called Sorcha. We were in their house in Connemara once when an English family with a daughter of a similar age arrived on a visit. On arrival, and when she realised that this was to be her destination, the same child burst into tears. “You told me we were going to the circus” she said with some bitterness.
Sorcha’s house had become Circus House to the disappointed girl.

Our own Eileen lost an even funnier word in translation when she was about the same age.
We were living at that time in Kilmacleague in a house without central heating. The front door wasn’t the tightest fit either so when it got cold we had a tendency the close all doors firmly because of the fierce draught coming in from outside. On one such a cold night we could see our Eileen jiggling uncomfortably by the fire and tried to encourage her to go to the bathroom.It became obvious after a while that she was frightened of making the journey to the loo on her own.
Eventually she told us the reason; “ I’m afraid of the Fierce Giraffe”.
On such small mistranslations are large fears founded.

When I was much the same age I was with my mother when we went into a record dealer on Washington Street in Cork.
I can still remember that it was called Cripps and Farren.
My mother was looking for something to clean out very new collection of 33 rpm records which we at this stage enjoying on the state of the art record player of the time called a “Black Box”.
The salesman sold my mother a small pink sponge, in which, he explained to her , you must always keep a little moisture (obviously a new word for me) in the middle.
I was horrified when we got home to see her squeezing the same sponge with some vigour as she cleaned the records.
“Don’t do it so hard !” I said, “ You’ll kill the little mice in the middle”