Sir, – Glancing through Crosaire 18,182 (April 23rd), I noticed the following clue at 25 Across: “We hear Irish leader is involved in drink scare.’’ Wondering for some time what the solution to this might be it suddenly dawned on me that it must be “Taoiseach”, the pronunciation of which is deemed to resemble the two English words tea and shock, which of course it does not.
The final phoneme in taoiseach, in fact, is a guttural fricative and not a guttural stop, the sound that is found in the Irish word mac “son”. One can also compare the two phrases a mac “her son’' and amach “out’' to understand the importance of pronouncing Irish correctly.
I suppose the important words in the clue are “We hear’' for that indeed is the case – bad pronunciation of Irish from RTÉ, from our politicians, and from recorded messages in government departments, with teeshock, garda sheekona, etc, being the norm.
It would all drive you to drink. – Yours, etc,
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FERGUS GILLESPIE,
Ballinteer,
Dublin 16.