craic and crunk (krunk)

[Loretta Callahan]

Hope this isn't too far out there, but I've just learned about this word "craic". There seems to be a covert meaning ~ but sounds like it's about having a good time and really getting involved with whatever is going on with music, dance or partying. Can one get their "craic" on in church, for example? As with most terms Irish that I see spelled, I usually mis pronounce them. Any pronunciation hints would be great.

I am very familiar with the American term "crunk", which is about seriously being into a groove of having a good time. One doesn't mess with another's crunk/krunk ... especially while they're getting their "crunk on". There are consequences to crunk destroying. I can use crunk in a sentence, which I sometimes do, and nobody throws anything at me if I haven't disrupted their crunk.

Do people use "craic" in sentences in real life? Just wondering.

[Jill McAuley]

Folk use "craic" in sentences regularly back home - If you are having a night out with pals afterwards you might tell someone that it was "great craic altogether..." Or if you have a pal who's loads of fun to hang out with you might say "He's great craic..." It's pronounced "crack". I have to be careful when I use it in a sentence in the States as I've always lived in urban areas here and folk tend to give me funny looks when they hear that word, and then I have to translate meself to them...

Cheers,
Jill

[Dave Hanson]

The craic was good in Cricklewood,
They wouldn't leave the Crown,
With glasses flying and biddies crying,
Sure paddy was going to town,

[ Dominic Behan ]

[Bertram Henze]

You always get me with etymological conundrums - "craic" I knew, but crunk is new to me. Can it possibly stem from the German word "krank" (pronounced exactly like crunk, but meaning "sick")? Reminds me very much of "kluge".

[Jock]

Used extensively through out Ireland and the rural British Isles in vernacular speech in both gaelic & english. In parts of Canada the word gets a fair airing also, predominantly on the northeastern costal fringes (where the bulk of the population have an accent that sound like a scots dialect thats spent to long in ireland). The etymology of the word is a hard one to pin down but if I had to hazard a guess I'd say that as it seems strongest on the atlantic fringes (but not exclusively so) it's roots should be sought on the gaelic west. The neighbour has already asked me "my craic" this morning, which is fair to middling at the moment.

>>>>Get the craic with craic here>>>>

[Jock]

Announcing that I was "off out to get the craic with the guys and smoke a few fags" made me realise early on the difference between english in common usage both sides of the pond. I had some difficulty explaining that to my concerned hosts; that I was off out to engage in banter and to smoke a cigarette, rather than to infringe the local drug laws and commit a multiple homophobic inspired homicide.

I had similar trouble with; "my piece". Which in my case is an eastern atlantic colloquialism for ones sandwich (or packed lunch) rather than handgun. He says tomato, you say tomAto, but there are many who say "tomattie". On distant shores one has to be careful with word usage, but only until one has wised up and learned the craic!

[Bertram Henze]

Can it possibly stem from the German word "krank" (pronounced exactly like crunk

I was wrong. Found it. But the meaning is not too far away.

[Tim2723]

I'd always translated craic as 'a joyously good time', but I've never heard the word crunk in my life.

[Jim Bevan]

A whistle-playing friend of mine who lived in Galway for a few years often uses "craic" in the context of "deal" or "story", as in "I'll find out what the craic is."

[JEStanek]

I always knew krunk from the hip hop genre to mean Crazy Drunk. Little Jon would be a prime example.

[Jill McAuley]

A whistle-playing friend of mine who lived in Galway for a few years often uses "craic" in the context of "deal" or "story", as in "I'll find out what the craic is."

Aye, that'd be another way we'd use it - if I wanted to ask someone what's happening I'd say "What's the craic?"

Cheers,
Jill

[Jill McAuley]

Announcing that I was "off out to get the craic with the guys and smoke a few fags" made me realise early on the difference between english in common usage both sides of the pond. I had some difficulty explaining that to my concerned hosts; that I was off out to engage in banter and to smoke a cigarette, rather than to infringe the local drug laws and commit a multiple homophobic inspired homicide.

I had similar trouble with; "my piece". Which in my case is an eastern atlantic colloquialism for ones sandwich (or packed lunch) rather than handgun. He says tomato, you say tomAto, but there are many who say "tomattie". On distant shores one has to be careful with word usage, but only until one has wised up and learned the craic!

Similar thing happened to a guy I knew from Newcastle who's band was playing in Dublin years ago - at the time raves and drug use at them were all over the tabloids, particularly stories about acid. So my pal John is waiting outside the post office (one of his bandmates is inside sending postcards home to his ma...) and he tries to cadge a smoke of someone by asking if they've "got a tab...(what the Newcastle lads called a cigarette)" Well the person he asked went into the post office and got them to call the gardai because of the young man out front "asking for drugs..."

Cheers,
Jill

[PseudoCelt]

The etymology of the word is a hard one to pin down...

As far as I'm aware, craic is a relatively recent Hibernicized spelling of the English word crack, much like session/seisiun or television/telebhisin. Not sure where it originated though.

Patrick

[Dan Hulse]

Never before had heard the word Crunk/krunk, but far be it from me to pass up any opportunity for shameless self promotion. See definition 2: http://www.bernieworld.net/cb.htm

[Loretta Callahan]

Okey dokey! Think I may have it here. I won't use craic in East Oakland or NEast Portland. Won't ask to smoke a fag in the Castro. Think it's safe to say I'm gettin' my krunk on at my local pub. Reckon I'll be able to use craic when the spirit so determines.

That's cool about the German word "krank" Bertram. As a resident and frequent visitor in hoods in both Oaktown and Puddletown, I've managed to get my krunk on without too many problems.

Thanks all! My last name demands that I learn many things Irish, lol. The more I learn, the more delighted I am.

Folk use "craic" in sentences regularly back home - If you are having a night out with pals afterwards you might tell someone that it was "great craic altogether..." Or if you have a pal who's loads of fun to hang out with you might say "He's great craic..." It's pronounced "crack". I have to be careful when I use it in a sentence in the States as I've always lived in urban areas here and folk tend to give me funny looks when they hear that word, and then I have to translate meself to them...

Cheers,
Jill

[Randi Gormley]

Couple of guys in our group have 'Craic Addict' T-shirts, which kind of is an in-joke at sessions I've been to. I also found it in a book where the character (visiting Ireland) heard it as "crack" but when asked about it, was told it was spelled 'craic' -- crunk I'd never heard either. The definition reminded me of the Disney movie 'The Emperor's New Groove,' where the emperor was doing some fancy dancing and singing and someone interrupted him and was tossed out a window for interfering with the emperor's groove. ah, pop culture!

[JeffD]

Folk use "craic" in sentences regularly back home - If you are having a night out with pals afterwards you might tell someone that it was "great craic altogether..." Or if you have a pal who's loads of fun to hang out with you might say "He's great craic..." It's pronounced "crack".

Jill you energized me. I traveled to Scotland on several occations back in the day, to hang out with the music and learn to play it. And I do remember the phrase "good craic <crack as I heard it>" in reference to some really memorable sessions and nights out. And as I was thinking about those times I remembered a tunebook I had purchased in Edinburgh that added significantly to my tune repertoire at the time.

So your posting motivated me to dig around last night in my stacks and stacks, and I found that tune book, the cover of which I reproduce here. Way cool. Thanks for the memories!

[Eddie Sheehy]

Never heard of crunk.
Craic means Fun, pure and simple.
There are three degrees of Craic
Great Craic
Mighty Craic
The Craic was Ninety.

[Rodney Riley]

He says tomato, you say tomAto, but there are many who say "tomattie".

Then there's "Towmater".

http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/cars/

[Eddie Sheehy]

Way before it became popular an impromptu jam session in a pub used to be referred to as "Craic agus Ceol" - Music and Great Sport... I've never heard it associated with an English word "crack".

[michaelpthompson]

Craic is Gaelic for good times, good conversation, good company. Nothing to do with the English word "crack" except they sound the same.

When a seisún gets going well, they say the craic is mighty, or even the craic is ninety. Check out the song, "The Craic Was Ninety in the Isle of Man."

[Bertram Henze]

So your posting motivated me to dig around last night in my stacks and stacks, and I found that tune book, the cover of which I reproduce here. Way cool. Thanks for the memories!

Where's the crack? After too much craic, you might find it in the top of your mandolin...

[Loretta Callahan]

To clarify ~ krunk is an African American, kind of ghetto term. If you aren't familiar with a black ghetto or hip hop, you probably haven't heard of it.

[Clement Barrera-Ng]

Check out the song, "The Craic Was Ninety in the Isle of Man."

I first learned of the term 'craic' when I heard Christy Moore did his version of the song. It still remains one of my favorites. I believe both Andy Irvine and Donal Lunny played on this song:



Now I have got to go and get me a 'craic addict' t-shirt

[foldedpath]

There is a great book by Ciaran Carson called "Last Night's Fun: A Book About Irish Traditional Music." He seems to be saying in the passage quoted below, that it is (or was) more commonly written as "crack", and that the Gaelicized "craic" is something of a recent affectation. Or maybe it's just his curmudgeonly take on it:

Which brings us to the famous "crack", popularly and recently Gaelicised as craic and advertised in countless retro-renovated bars throughout the land, as in "Live Ceol, Sandwiches and Craic". Non-Irish speakers in particular will insist on its ancient Gaelic lineage and will laboriously enunciate this shibboleth to foreigners who take it for a pharmacological rather than a social high. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary dates crack, "chat, talk of the news", to 1450. "Cracker" is "one who or that which cracks, sep. a boaster, a liar", reminding me of the Fermanagh use of "lie", meaning an impressively convincing tall stoy, or wind-up. As the late Eddie Duffy, flute-player and cracker would say, "The trouble with the young ones nowadays, they can play none, they can sing none, they can dance none, and they can tell no lies." In Belfast dialect, a cracker is a thing which is the best of its kind, a superlative. A good-looking woman is a "real cracker." The Belfast comedian Frank Carson (no relation), in the middle of whatever routine applause, would come out with his catch-phrase, "It's a cracker!".

It seems to me that "crack" was, until fairly recently, confined to the North of Ireland, for I remember Southerners would look somewhat nonplussed at our coming out with, "The crack was ninety" about an especially good session, or simply, "It was great crack".