A chara, - Kevin Myers writes (An Irishman's Diary, September 1st): "It was about 10 years ago that the Hiberno-English word 'crack' began to appear in its Irish form in written English in Ireland". He goes on to complain of "its pretentiousness, witless posturing", in his usual surly way.
Let us for a moment be clear on facts. The English word "crack" does not appear in Old English (viz: The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary; Oxford, 1979: 591, 1122), though cognate forms appear in Old High German ("chrac"), Dutch ("krak"), etc. According to the same source, the word's first appearance in English happened in the year 1300 AD.
How old is the version complained of by Mr Myers? I don't know, but I guess that it might have arrived here with the Vikings. The word craic is in print in Foclóir Gaeilge Béarla (Ó Dónaill, 1977: s.v.).
The English language over the years has borrowed freely from other tongues, including Irish. Likewise, the Irish language has borrowed freely, just as freely, from other languages and does not have to apologise for so doing. - Is mise,
DEASÚN BREATNACH,
Baile an Chnoic,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Átha Cliath.