"I have often wondered", writes Margaret Gladney from Hollybush Road, Liverpool, "why Irish people pronounce the word `patron' pattern. In the part of Ireland I come from, south Carlow, people always refer to the Pattern of St Mullins: why is this so'?
Father is a very ancient word indeed and is found in all the Aryan languages in various forms, the Greek and Latin pater among them. From pater came the Latin patronus, a person in a father-like position, such as the master of a freed slave or a lord who is looked to for protection. To the early Christians it was the name attached to a saint to which a religious community or indeed an individual person was dedicated. Saints were, of course, models to be imitated and patron came to mean model. In the 16th century, patron acquired the pronunciation pattern, and became a fair in honour of a patron saint. The pronunciation has since been peculiar to Ireland, the exception being Wexford's Barony of Forth, where Lady's Island pattern, Ilone Vaar (Island Fair) continued to be called a patroon, due to their French connection, until the end of the last century.
It may surprise you to learn that most of our university students know precious little about grammar. Grammar is descended from Greek grammatike, from gramma, a letter as a division mark (think of "Section A") from graphein, to write. Grammar formerly meant, not the scientific study of classes, sounds, forms and of words in a language but learning in general. In the dark ages when learned men were thought to be in league with the powers of darkness, grammar began to be used in a general sense as a word for magic. The Scots, probably cogging from the Old French gramaire, magic, had gramarie and gramery. Would your friendly publican, if you echoed the gent in the Towneley Mystery of 1450 and said, just after he called Time for the tenth time, `Cowthe ye by your gramery reche us a drynk?' pull another pint for you? The Scots had another related word for enchantment, glamour.
Walter Scott may take the credit for introducing the word into standard English: but the word is still used in the north of Ireland as the Ballymena Observer recorded it in 1890: "After Hallow Eve the divil throws his glammery ower the blackberries." And that, Mary Smith of Drummin, Co Longford, is where glamour came from.
Diarmaid O Muirithe's words have been collected in a new book called A Word in Your Ear, and published in paperback at £6.95 by Four Courts Press. Available in all bookshops.