BEARING in mind the success of "craic", I'm thinking of launching an Hibernicised version of the Icelandic word " kreppa": meaning "crisis". This is the term our friends in Reykjavik use for their economic collapse, which of course has been particularly severe. The kreppahit the fan earlier and harder in Iceland than anywhere else, although Ireland seems to be catching up pretty well at this point.
Which is where my proposed new word comes in. It seems to me that we have a lot of kreppato deal with in this country at the moment. We're up to our knees in the stuff, and the Minister for Finance is expected to dump more of it on us next week.
Yet somehow none of the words by which we describe our situation – “recession”, “depression”, “downturn”, etc – seems adequate.
Whereas " kreppa" is perfect. It's hard, and to the point. Moreover, its onomatopoeic qualities are probably wasted in Icelandic. Hence my suggestion that we import it into Hiberno-English as what linguists call a "loan" word. (If the Icelanders won't loan it, we should just take it. It's well known that 1,000 years ago, they used to come down here and steal our women. They can't complain.)
Naturally, as with craic, we would need to make it look more Irish. And here is the beauty of the plan. I note from a recent post by Iceland’s leading English-language blogger, Alda Sigmundsdottir, that the literal meaning of kreppa refers to “clenching” or “tightening”: in which sense it features in a popular Icelandic phrase “where the shoe pinches”.
Well, what do you know? While looking up my Irish-English dictionary for a plausible Hibernicisation of “kreppa”, and of course searching under C since our mother tongue does not have Ks, I was reminded that Irish already includes the word “crap”. It’s a perfectly respectable word: a verb, in fact. And it means – lo! – to “contract” or “shrink”.
Thus the Irish noun for “shrinkage” is “crapadh“: in which (I point this out for the benefit of Icelandic readers) the D is silent, leaving the word’s pronunciation as close to “krappa” as makes no difference.
Perhaps this seemingly spooky coincidence has a logical explanation via some crosscurrent between the Celtic and North Germanic languages. Either way, it is yet another thing Ireland has in common with Iceland. Like it or not, we must accept – as those female slaves presumably had to do when snatched by the Vikings – that we are now and for the foreseeable future, in the same boat.
In which spirit, days before the toughest budget in living memory, I hereby formally launch my new word. As I write, talks at Government Buildings continue amid a backlash over the proposals for unpaid public service leave. So by way of inaugurating my Hiberno-Icelandic neologism, let me just say that I look forward with trepidation to hearing what sort of crapadh the Government and public sector unions come up with next.
THE LAST WORD(maybe) on "crack/craic" goes to reader Colm de Barra, who mentions an interesting use of the term from more than 300 years ago. It occurs in the writings of Englishman John Dunton, who made an extensive tour of Ireland – or "Teague Land" as he called it – and turned his experiences into a travelogue: A Merry Ramble to the Wild Irish, published in 1698.
Here he discusses the revelry he witnessed at a wake in Galway, and the curious gastrointestinal etiquette of his hosts: “. . . great tubbs of drink which was brewed that day followed on hand barrows; with which they filled themselves soe that all night they kept an intollerable belching, tho I did not heare one of them make a crack at the other end, soe odious is this among them, and soe little is the other taken notice of.” Clearly “crack” had a more visceral significance then. But this is probably all of a piece with the word’s evolution towards its latter-day meaning, which as often as not refers to the atmosphere in places where beer is drunk. It may be no coincidence, after all, that an alternative term for the crack/craic is “gas”.
FINALLY, some good news on the economic front. At a time of so much Crapadh, it's heartening to hear of anything that's not shrinking. And I'm indebted to eagle-eared reader Donal Kennedy for sharing something he heard on BBC Radio 4 recently: namely the chief executive of the company that makes Durex attributing record profits in the first part of 2009 – apparently with a straight face – to "organic growth".
It sounded too good to be true. But I looked it up on Bloomberg Business News, and sure enough there was the head of SSL International – whose other main product is Scholl shoe inserts (no kreppathere) – expanding on the theme. "We've had very good sales [. . .] partly driven by acquisition, but also partly driven by good old, solid organic growth from Durex and Scholl", Garry Watts said.
“Good old, solid organic growth”? He sounds like a man of a certain age who’s just relieved that everything still works. And speaking of which, maybe we can now look forward to positive end-of-year results from Pfizer, makers of Viagra. If there’s any sign of upturn, it will surely happen there first.