In Maggie's Place, on 47th Street and Madison Avenue, one of Manhattan's best watering holes, I overheard two plain-clothes policemen talking animatedly. I had dropped in to have a crack with Maggie Greene, who was the daughter of the Rannafast novelist known to the world as "Maire", as I have always done when gracing New York with my presence. I was saddened to be told by her sons that Maggie had died since my last visit to her. Grasta o Dhia uirthi.
At any rate, the two policemen who sat close to me had come from a rally protesting against the jailing of three of their own, one of them a woman, for conducting a search of a house without a warrant. The verdict has caused intense anger among New York's finest and caused the pair at my shoulder to rail against politicians, judges and the brass of the police force. The word goom figured largely in their conversation. It is police slang, confined to New York, and it is the diminutive of another slang word, goomara.
The origin of both words, I was told, can be traced to a favourite Italian-American excuse for coming home late: "I had to visit my comare"; comare is an Italian godmother. It would never work here.
Felicity MacDermot wrote from Coolavin, Ballaghaderreen, about the verb to lear. My correspondent was born and reared on Exmoor. She is confused on this verb, she says, because it has two different meanings; she would also like to know if I've come across it in Ireland.
She writes: "The new owner of a sheep farm with grazing on the moor always bought in a portion of his predecessor's sheep because they were leared, and would not stray. But an old farmer for whom I worked once used to say `never travel leary', in other words, find a return load for your cart. Different words?"
Yes. The first lear is from Old English laeran, to teach, and it has not been recorded in Ireland as far as I know. The other lear, unladen, is from Middle English lere, empty. You'll find it in Poole's Glossary of the English of Forth and Bargy, Co Wexford, but it was known nowhere else in Ireland.
Felicity also wants to know the origin of the adjective boast, as in "a boast tree", a tree hollowed by decay. Known in Ulster as well as in Ballaghaderreen, the word probably represents the Middle English borst(en), burst.