Your Man

If I said to you, "I saw your man last night. We were out at the club and your man had his shirt off and was dancing on a table," what would you think?

If you have a significant other that's male, you probably think of him first. If you don't, you're thinking one of your good buddies, and the storyteller's being coy, wanting you to guess, or else you know it's the one person you know who's drunk enough or wild enough to try a stunt like that, right? The word 'your' has meaning - it indicates some sort of relationship, either real or comic. Not so in Ireland. 'Your man' simply stands in for 'some random but noteworthy guy.'

Confused the hell out of me the first couple of times. I mean, the subset of people I know in Ireland is pretty darn small, so if someone here is telling me a story about 'my man,' I feel like it should be almost instantly apparent. As an example, roommate [D] from the Wednesday Night Saga told me this one:

"I was standin outside the Supermac's there after the club closed Tursday night watchin a few birds. I got an ice cream. So I'm standin there, and your man comes up to me and says [deep dumb guy voice], 'hey, man give me some of your ice cream.' So I look at em and I sez, 'go on now, yer drunk - I'm not givin ye any of it.' And yer man, he's swayin side to side, an he sez, 'don't be a wanker, now, just a taste.'

"I look at em an I go, 'feck. off. Now go.' An I put my hand on his chest, ye know, ta turn im away. Then all of a sudden your man has four friends - 'don't be touchin our feckin friend!'

"So I looked at all of em and I pointed at your man, and I sez [deep voice now] 'you listen here. I'm an off-duty cop and I'm watchin out fer trouble here. Do your friend a favor an get im home to bed.' And they hustle im off - 'sorry sorry, good man there, thanks.'"

. . .

Ok off to Glasgow early tomorrow for the weekend. So no posts until Tuesday. Try and go about your regular routine with your man there and I'll be back before you know it.