You Don't Say: The luck of the Irish - English grammar, language, usage and journalism blog by John E. McIntyre

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The luck of the Irish

My favorite Irish song is “The Ballad of William Bloat,” by Raymond Calvert, which I heard years ago in a Clancy Brothers recording. It’s about a man who decides to kill his wife, takes his razor and slits her throat as she sleeps, is stricken with remorse, takes a sheet and twists it into a noose, and hangs himself — typical Irish domestic cheer. These are the concluding lines:

He went to Hell, but his wife got well,

And she's still alive and sinnin’.

For the razor blade was German-made,

But the rope was Belfast linen.

Posted by John McIntyre at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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About John McIntyre

John McIntyre, mild-mannered editor for a great metropolitan newspaper, has fussed over writers’ work, to sporadic expressions of gratitude, for thirty years. He is The Sun’s night content production manager and former head of its copy desk. He also teaches editing at Loyola University Maryland. A former president of the American Copy Editors Society, a native of Kentucky, a graduate of Michigan State and Syracuse, and a moderate prescriptivist, he writes about language, journalism, and arbitrarily chosen topics. If you are inspired by a spirit of contradiction, comment on the posts or write to him at john.mcintyre@baltsun.com.

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