The trip to Ireland didn’t start well; my airline didn’t tell me that I’d have to check my carryon during the last leg of my flight, because Europeans have a different opinion of what constitutes an “oversized” bag. I suppose that’s some sort of comment about American obesity, Europeans? Whatever. So I had to check my bag which caused me to miss my connecting flight, and when I finally arrived at the Dublin airport, naturally they had lost my bag.
So I went on to my destination without my luggage and bought a razor in a nearby store. I’m used to my electric razor, so I cut myself and I put a kleenex over the cut and it flapped in the air as though I was signaling for surrender.
But from there everything improved. The airline found my bag the next morning and delivered it, preventing me from turning into a human bandage for the remainder of my trip. I met my friends and we hit Dublin pretty intensely. I expected rain and fog, but Dublin was warmer than the place I had left. I ended up with a faint pink blush filling in the peninsulas of my receding hairline. We did some shopping, visited Kilmainham Prison--which was indistinguishable from a hostel, in my opinion--and saw the world’s oldest book, The Book of Kells, at Trinity College. They only had a few pages on display of this gorgeous illuminated manuscript, but I really hate not knowing the ending so I broke the glass and flipped through the pages. It turns out that Mary Magdalene had Jesus’s baby. Who knew?
We also visited a cathedral, which sits on top of a crypt containing the entombed remains of a knight from the Crusades. They let you walk into the crypt and “shake his hand"--in other words, gently rub his outstretched skeletal finger--which is supposed to be good luck. “Did you wish for the Raiders or the 49ers?” the tour guide asked me, showing an excellent grasp of American football but annoying me because I have to fly thousands of miles to tell yet another person I don’t know how to answer sports questions? This feeling was intensified the next day when the entire city dressed in insane colors and paints for a Kerry versus Mayo soccer match. These people were crazy. They made Red Sox season in Boston look like martial law.
Now I’m in Galway, and the plan had been to take a tour of the Cliffs of Moher, but that turns out to be all day and I need to be in Limerick tomorrow. So instead I’m going to visit the house where James Joyce’s wife used to live, like a good literary geek.
Oh, but first: my friend Martina, who is German, says I don’t deserve my English degree because I can’t tell her what word in English means “pieces of a broken dish.” I’m pretty sure that Americans refer to this as “pieces of a broken dish,” rather than some ready-made phrase that Germans apparently have. Does anyone know if I am, in fact, dumb, or if Americans just don’t bother making up words for stuff that just isn’t very important? Please dish.
‘Shards’ or occasionally ‘sherds’ = pieces of a broken dish.
The Germans have a single word for everything. Just look at airplane safety placards. In English it will say: “In the event of a water evacuation your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device.” The German translation will be one word. I wonder how long that word sat around unused?
The nearest word I can imagine is “shard”.
Hello, Greg.
I did think of “shard” but I don’t see that word as being specific to a broken dish; it could refer to glass, for example.
potsherd, perhaps? in my house we call them we call them ‘goddammits.’
shard is the only thing that’s coming to mind for me, but as you said, it can be used in a lot of different ways so it’s gotta be something else right? this is going to drive me crazy now. for the next five seconds or so anyway ... until the next distraction comes along. ooh look! dust! gotta go.
regardless of what shards are lying on the flower....you need to post some photos (please)
Ask her what the German word is. I’ll bet it translates as “Piecesofabrokendish” because that is the way that language works.
Of course English has a word for it. English has more words than any two other languages put together, mostly because English basically is two languages put together.
Anyway, the word you’re looking for is “potsherd”.
Have fun in Ireland, say hóigh to my peeps.
According to Elias—shards. It’s a term used mostly in archaeology. You’re right about the importance of shards to Americans. Look at the lack of care our country took with Iraq’s dishes.
We’re looking forward to your safe return!
You can tell Martina for me there is no word in English for “pieces of a broken dish.” Shards is close, but it’s not in use, except in reference to broken pottery found at an archeological site. Also, used in politics, as in “I shard your pain.”
P.S. But German has some really good words for which there are no good English equivalents, like “Shadenfreude” and “zeitgeist,” both of which I use frequently. Also, “Endlösung der Judenfrage,” which I hardly ever use in mixed company.
i was gonna add my own vote of “shards” (not “potsherd,” because honestly, who says “potsherd”??) but then papa goose’s second comment made me laugh too hard.
say hi to nora from me.
and on an unrelated note, i thought you’d enjoy this little bit of enlightenment from joyce :
There once was a lounger named Stephen
Whose youth was most odd and uneven
--He throve on the smell
--Of a horrible hell
That a Hottentot wouldn’t believe in.
If it’s sherds, it’s sherds and not shards. I have a B.A. in archaeologese which authorizes me to be snobby about these things. (This might, however, be the first time I’ve ever invoked it. It’s not a very practical degree.) I do think a movement to replace both “sherds” and “shards” with “godammits” is one I could support, even if that results in revocation of my heretofore useless degree.
Also I notice you didn’t call it Kilmainham Gaol, and you left out all reference to the poem. Did you think we’d take it as some sort of footie thing? “O’Leary heads it to Shaughnessy and ... GAOOOOOOLLLLLL!!!!!”
p. 183, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“...taught him to construe the Metamorphoses of Ovid in a courtly English, made whimsical by the mention of porkers and potsherds and chines of bacon.”
apparently, it’s traditional to break your plate after consuming swine. don’t say i didn’t give you any advice.
Actually, I was thinking of tile, as in the german word teil, which means little pieces, I think. Why is this important?
Break your plate and anything else standing between you and a good time, apparently.
Greg, bring me back a piece of The Gorgeous Illuminated Text with the First Family Portrait (that Jesus and MM thing you referenced...)
I hate to do this, but I have to, HAVE TO mention that the Book of Kells is not the world’s oldest book, nor even the oldest book from the part of the world. Not by a long shot.
But I’m still super-jealous that you got to see it.
I would be tempted to say “fragments.”
I once sat on the Cliffs of Moher and hung my feet over the edge. And I’m afraid of heights. I took pictures of the foamy sea below and later tried to see images in the twisted white. That’s the place where we took our last family photo, as my mother died later that summer. Ah, Ireland.
Wait, was that depressing? Oh, it’s raining here.
Rather than wax all educated, I was just going to tell you to have a few good beers and toast to anything you damn well want to, cuz you’re in Ireland, and, well, that just rocks!
I love Galway the most out of all Ireland. Just be careful around the Cliffs of Mohr. It was windy when I visited and I almost got blown off the cliffs. Enjoy the large overhead bins on your return flight
I think it’s pretty clear that “shard” used to mean “broken dish” but has been distorted by years of use to mean other broken things as well. This point of view is supported by this. Cool.
I once spent fifteen minutes trying to convince my French co-worker that there was no English equivalent for “mie”, which is what the French call the interior of a loaf of bread (as opposed to, say, the crust, I guess).