A chara, - That Myers chap of yours who writes an Irishman's Diary laments (December 2nd) the fading from use of the word "chap". I'd like to console him with the information that the word is very much alive and well in the southern parts of Co Wicklow, where visitors and newcomers may be surprised, as I was, to hear "the chaps" used commonly to refer to the children, both boys and girls. (Or should I be politically correct and write "of any and all orientations"?)
So, for his greater contentment, perhaps your Kevin chap may even consider moving east from Kildare to the the regions of the adopted home of his patron saint.
And while he attributes the universalisation of the rising lilt at the end of ordinary indicative moods to Neighbours, that musical inflexion in south Co Wicklow, and in Co Cork and elsewhere, well predates Neighbours, and even television itself.
Could it be an export from Ireland to those antipodean climes? - Is mise,
PADRAIG McCARTHY, Avoca, Co Wicklow.