Meabh Ní Phríondragás

@FrazHoehle Constantly happens in print too...

Welcome to A Tradesman’s Diary Where I’ll post stupid shit customers do…. Starting off with….

@I_amMukhtar They are the greatest shower of fuckwits that ever walked the earth....I'll pick you up at the airport 💚

The Irish far-right are still crying in my mention. Talking about "don't come here." I'm definitely going to Ireland in the near future.

@edelfaherty All good pal xx

@edelfaherty Del you are so talented what a gift 🥰

@AntigoneJournal Why I remain attached to this hellsite ...to learn things like this! 🥰

What are the oldest numbers in English? Well, before the Normans, the Anglo-Saxons, and even the Romans turned up, the Britons spoke Brythonic Celtic languages. Remarkably, the bare bones of that counting system are still preserved by some rural sheep farmers. Take the numbers for 1-10 in Cumbria's Borrowdale valley: yan, tyan, tethera, methera, pimp (5), sethera, lethera, hovera, dovera, dick (10). This not only echoes Celtic languages such as Welsh (pump 5, deg 10), but all manner of Indo-European languages, such as Ancient Greek (pente 5, deka 10). The numbers have been gradually altered to give good rhythm and rhyme for speed-counting sheep as they rush into the pen; different parts of Northern England (and a few pockets elsewhere) inevitably evolved slight differences in form. Shepherds counted to twenty before starting again, but made a mark on their crook: so twenty is a "score".

@AntigoneJournal @ChrisRBurrows @MichaelRosenYes The Irish for ten is a deich (pronounced deh) 💚

@ChrisRBurrows @MichaelRosenYes Yes, in that French dix comes from the Latin decem, which comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root *dekm(t), which led to Brythonic *dekan, and Old Welsh dec, Cornish deg, Bretonic dek etc.

@mcjude I bought my nephew's an Elf on the Shelf a few years ago and still have not been forgiven 🤣

Is buying your three year old niece a ukulele for Christmas an unforgivable act of violence against your own sister?

@MattLewisAuthor I'd say Lynette is great craic at parties 😱 love your work, all of you, history is for everyone 💚

I don’t have a history degree. And I’m not even a minor ‘celeb’ (which is frankly rude about David Mitchell). Guess my books won’t be on Lynette’s Christmas wish list! Oh well.

@carolkav81 I used to do all nighters but learned the hard way not to so now do the same as you and say no I need sleep 🥰

That clown couldn't win an argument son 🤣 state of him

@I_amMukhtar Fish and chips was invented by Italian migrants in the 19th century 🤣

Man said stop denying our culture

@pigletish It has everything (I'm 45 btw)

This week Kirsty from @HenryVIIIonTour told us how she's tracking the movements of Henry VIII's queens round the countryside by recording all the places where milk was purchased for their greyhounds to drink.

@Lucy_Worsley @HenryVIIIonTour As the human servant of two sighthounds and a history nerd this makes me happy in so many ways 🥰

@jucopel I dont even have to press play I know what it is straight away....

My parents let me watch this as a child. Not my fault I became a feminist. 🤷‍♂️

@BardCumberland It is the Irish language word for Badger too...I wonder if that's where it originated?

In Cumbrian dialect, 'broc' is badger In folk tales, Badger is held in high esteem; 'brocan' was a Pictish name for 'wise man'. Badgers help protect against witchcraft, and they represent family harmony #badgers #folklore #cumbria

@EmmaSzewczak A first year nursing or med student could do better than that 😱

this is an absolutely UNHINGED way to open your book on the history of medicine !!!!!

@TadhgHickey Absolutely mortifying and grinning like he doesn't even get they're using him.....amadán

This man recently referred to me as 'absurd' on national radio. I can think of nothing more grimly absurd than visiting a hole in a ceiling in Israel while Gaza is razed to the ground with 12,000 murdered and counting. History will remember you as a genocide-enabler.

@StevenOMcCarthy @MickBarryTD @Stephen_C_Ward Thank you