Tag Archive: Father Ted


HOLY WATER – HOLY FECK!

Filed under: Humour, Movies — Leave a comment
November 19, 2011

The documentary ‘Fuck’ by Steve Anderson explores the use of the F-word  in life and movies. The mother of all curse words is used 824 times in the movie easily outstripping high-user competitors like Summer Of Sam, Nil By Mouth and Casino.

The claim made in the Irish ‘comedy’ Holy Water is that ‘feck’ is originally a Gaelic word with a different meaning. An American cop fails to perceive the distinction making for the first time I’ve ever heard the word ‘motherfecker’.

I wasn’t counting how many times ‘feck’ and its derivatives were used but I’d guess it occurs well over a hundred times. It is an example of what I discovered is called a ‘minced oath’ and falls into the same category as ‘frigging’ which is popular in pre-watershed TV drama.

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TEACHING ENGLISH : WHAT MAKES CONVERSATION REALISTIC?

Filed under: Books — Leave a comment
April 15, 2011

Mrs Doyle, in Father Ted, always knew when to offer a nice cup of tea.

Frequently in ‘real’ communicative situations, even between mother tongue speakers, there is the need to reformulate what we say to make our meaning clear. It is common to ask for clarification of what has been said.

In his book ‘How Conversation Works’,  Ronald Wardhaugh wrote that “much that is said in conversation is so ambiguous as to be virtually incomprehensible outside the framework in which it occurs“.

Therefore, we should not be surprised when students of English as a second language find most of  the so called ‘realistic’ dialogues hard to follow or even unintelligible.

A lot of  listening material places students in the role of eavesdroppers where they are expected to comprehend conversations which they are :  (a) certainly not part of  and  (b) probably not remotely interested in. Continue reading →

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