craic and crunk (krunk)

[trebleclef528]

Craic pronounced "Crack" (at least in the west of Scotland) is a very common word and as many previous postings have said relates to thinks like a good conversation, or a funny story. So it's not unusual to hear one person saying to another "give us some of your crack" in other words tell us a funny joke or story. Or you might say " we had a great night out... the crack was really good"... again meaning the conversations was good (usually funny)... so basically its used in terms of good times, good company good conversation.

But you might also say "his mandolins a cracker" meaning "it's really good" or "she's a cracker" meaning shes a good looking woman.
Not to be confused with terms like "He's a crack pot, totally aff e's heid!"... which means he's a really stupid person does and says stupid things (aff e's heid - "off his head"... gone nuts, crazy, lost it)

Anyway this has been a cracking thread and the crack has been crackin!
Cheers

[trebleclef528]

Oh! Just thought I'd add this. It had been suggested in a previous comment that Craic might come from the German word Krank (which means sick or ill, for example the German word for hospital is "krankenhause - house for sick/ill people). There is no connection between the two words.... but, in my previous post I referred to the term "he's a crack pot"....... and if we look far enough back to the "lowland Scots" language the word is "Krank pot"... in other words, ill nuts gone crazy... a sick head.

[Bertram Henze]

It had been suggested in a previous comment that Craic might come from the German word Krank

Actually, suggested was a connection of crunk and krank, but that has been proved wrong, too - at least etymologically.
Sometimes I suspect that the sounds of words and the shadows of meaning they instinctively trigger in our brains are common on a deeper level, at least in related cultures. Since there is hardly any European ethnic group that has not paid a visit to the British isles during the millenia, the many forms of English-ish languages contain the debris of so many European languages. A special case that keeps baffling me is Lowland Scots vs. German; just a few examples:

dochter - Tochter (daughter)
nicht - Nacht (night)
licht - Licht (light)
ken - kennen (know)

[Eddie Sheehy]

The early English kings (Edward et al.) used German mercenaries to fight the Scots. Probably left a bit of their language behind...

[SincereCorgi]

Also, Old English/Anglo-Saxon is quite similar to German- when I studied Old English everybody was always telling me what a shame it was that I didn't speak German already. Then, when I studied some German, it took me a while to get past my extremely weird-sounding and archaic Beowulf pronunciations. (As a side note, stuff like 'Beowulf' sounds fantastic in the original.)

Tochter = dohtor
Nacht = neaht
Licht = lihtan
Ken = kennan

[John Kelly]

Further to this Scots/Germanic link as highlighted with the word similarities given by the above posters, Scots missed the shift from the hard "k" consonant to the softer "ch" which happened in Middle English, so we have retained the words such as "kirk" rather than the modern English "church", and we call a small boat a "skiff" rather than a "ship". We also have that Germanic "ch" consonant as in our pronunciation of words such as "loch", which the average non-Scottish speaker of modern English modifies to "lock". we often get requests to play or sing "LocK Lomond" when entertaining tourists locally. The beautiful little silver or horn drinking cup so closely associated with Scotland is called a "quaich".

No one in Scotland, however, ever says the apocryphal "It's a braw, bricht, moonlicht nicht the nicht" unless we are performing linguistic acrobatics for our non-Scots neighbours - here's a sound we can make that you lot cannot!

Meanwhile, back in the world of the mandolin and Celtic music.......

[Bertram Henze]

Then, when I studied some German, it took me a while to get past my extremely weird-sounding and archaic Beowulf pronunciations. (As a side note, stuff like 'Beowulf' sounds fantastic in the original.)

Had to look up Beowulf in YouTube, actually, and the sound immediately reminded me of a dialect called Plattdütsch spoken until today in norther parts of Germany, where the old Saxons originated.
Set in the right verse rhythm, it's not too far away from Tam o Shanter

[journeybear]

There are the (American) English terms "wisecracks" and "cracking wise," which may or may not be related, but do refer to good jokes and the telling of them. That is, they bespeak the combination of conversation and fun at the core of craic - as I have come to understand it, thanks to all you eloquent posters. Enjoying all this craic tremendously!

I'm a little surprised no one has mentioned "crunk" as a musical term, which is how I have heard it used. I believe it is a variant of hip hop, though I am not sufficiently familiar with the genre to distinguish among its various forms. I am reasonably sure mandolin usage in it is extremely rare, though.

[Loretta Callahan]

Indeed, John ~ I'm not far by name, but pretty new to these roots, our family is just discovering them. There does indeed seem to be a strong Scots/Northern Ireland influence with Callahan; didn't know that about Kelly (one of my favorite names). The parents just didn't discuss our roots.

I'm 16th generation from the South (Malcolm/McCullum) on me Mum's very Scots side and 7th generation on my father's Callahan Irish side ~ from West Virginia. Both parent's roots seem to have some beginnings in Northern Ireland. I'm quite the American, obviously, but when I first heard ITM/Celtic music 25 years ago, it instantly connected me to the islands of my ancestors.

Yup, this has been a fun thread. I was kinds of nervous about posting the question; for fear of seeming out there. Then I remembered where I was, lol.

Loretta, with a name like Callahan you are not far from your Celtic roots. I am from the west coast of Scotland and my birthplace was in Campbeltown, a small fishing and farming town on the Kintyre peninsula which is only about 20 miles from Rathlin Island and the Northern Irish (County Antrim) coast - it makes my surname, Kelly, interesting as is suggests Irish roots and the cross-migration between Antrim and the south-west of Scotland was much greater than history seems to chronicle.

I have really enjoyed all the craic this thread has generated.

I didn't know "crunk" was a kind of hip hop. I just thought I was getting my "krunk" on when I rocked out to Mary J, Mos Def, Three Mile Stone, De Dannan and Mary Jane Lamond!

I'm a little surprised no one has mentioned "crunk" as a musical term, which is how I have heard it used. I believe it is a variant of hip hop, though I am not sufficiently familiar with the genre to distinguish among its various forms. I am reasonably sure mandolin usage in it is extremely rare, though.

[Jim MacDaniel]

...But you might also say "his mandolins a cracker" meaning "it's really good" or "she's a cracker" meaning shes a good looking woman...

Just received an example of this usage in an email from Foot Stompin' Music today -- and were it not for this thread, I wouldn't have picked up on an etymological connection with craic...

The special CD offer today is "The Missing Gift" from the Anna Massie Band. This is a cracker of a CD featuring award-winning multi-instrumentalist Anna Massie, accordionist & piper Mairearad Green and guitarist vocalist Jenn Butterworth...