A song I hadn't thought of for years concerns the Irish wake that followed the death of one Tim Finnegan. Thanks to the wonders of Google, it wasn't hard to find the lyrics.

Question: a few sites claim that this song inspired the title to James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. Is there any truth to that?

(Further question: The song has the words gob and ruction. Do people actually use those words?)

Isn't Finnegan's Wake the bow waves he produced while being towed out to sea?

Asa, who'd better shut his gob....

quote:

Question: a few sites claim that this song inspired the title to James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. Is there any truth to that?

I don't know about that, but I do know the Joyce's work, Finnegans Wake, has no apostrophe in its title. I did once hear the explanation for this apparent aberration but can't recollect what it is.

Yes, the book Finnegans Wake, or at least its title (no apostrophe there either), was inspired by the Irish song, Finnegan's Wake. A great book and a funny song. I have several versions of the song in MP3 form, from the traditional to the punk. The main character in the book, HCE (which stands for Here Comes Everybody, Howth Castle and Environs, or Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, an Irish publican) spends most of the novel sleeping and dreaming. The titular character in the song, Tim Finnegan of Walkin' St, spends most of the song unconscious and supposed dead, until, at the height of a row, some whiskey is spilled on his lips and he is resurrected. Arno Schmidt, who is sometimes called the German James Joyce, wrote a massive book called Zettel's Traum (Slip's Dream, er, Slipstream?) where a non-German-orthographical apostrophe is used in the possessive in homage to Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

[Fixed some typos.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd, May 20, 2007 08:23

quote:

(Further question: The song has the words gob and ruction. Do people actually use those words?)

Yes to both. Gob is a word of Irish origin, but it's not uncommon as a slang term for the mouth in the rest of the British Isles as well. Sample usage "Shut yer gob!", which is often followed swiftly by a punch in the aforementioned gob.

A ruction is a noisy disturbance, often used in the plural: ructions Example: "Shut yer gob or there'll be ructions".

"Shut yer gob!", which is often followed swiftly by a punch in the aforementioned gob.

And, then, one would say that that person had been gobsmacked. I always thought that gob was simply Russian bog 'god' reversed. (As Dog is my co-pilot!) Is the Bug river somehow related?

I've always liked the line 'round the floor your trotters shake.