The word: Craic

“We had great craic” cosa significa? La pronuncia è uguale a “crack” (lo stupefacente), ma la frase non vuol dire che si è fatto uso di buona droga! Craic, come slogan (quello pubblicitario), è una parola di origine gaelica ed è sinonimo di fun…

Mark Worden (Standard American accent)
“Craic” is one of those splendid Irish or Gaelic words that has found its way into the English language. It is spelt C-R-A-I-C, but the pronunciation is exactly the same as the English word “crack,”  which has been used to describe a type of drug. “Craic” in Irish means (1) great fun (2) or entertainment, and so when you hear Irish people say, “We had great craic last night,” this means that “We had great fun”: it does not mean that they were taking drugs! There are several (3) Gaelic words in the English language: perhaps the most famous example is “slogan,” as in advertising slogan. This comes from the word “sluagh-ghairm,” which was a battle cry used by Irish or Scottish clans. The other famous Gaelic word in English is “phoney,” which means fake (4). This comes from an old word for a ring and “fawney (fainne) rings” were fake rings which were sold by gypsies (5), and so a “fawney ring” was a fake ring, and  “phoney” became an adjective for fake in general. Please also note that in Irish the word Gaelic is pronounced “Gaelic,” but in Scottish it is pronounced “gallic.”

GLOSSARY

1. means: significa

2. fun: divertimento

3. several: molte, diverse

4. fake: falso

5. gypsies: zingari