Talk:smashing

The etymology

Since the British army is/was 40% Scottish, and had lots of Highlander and Islander Gaidhlig speakers, and; since all things Irish are anathema to the English for centuries; and since it matches much better; I submit that smashing is from the Scots Gaelic 's math sin and NOT the Irish (Gailge.)

There were Irish workers galore in England and the phrase could have been picked up by the general population. In any case, both are complete sentences and should end in a full stop and the i in Is should be put in upper case.

It is not from either Irish or Scottish Gaelic. It's just from English "smash". The rest is an urban legend. --Doric Loon (talk) 14:10, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Not sure how you can claim that it's definitely not from Gaelic. The Scottish Gaelic phrase 's math sin is an almost exact homophone for smashing, and literally means "that's good". Since "smashing" was a pre-existing word in English, and Gaelic and English are spoken side by side, it doesn't take a massive leap to imagine how that word and the Gaelic phrase "'s math sin" could combine such that it takes on the idiomatic meaning of "that's good" in English too. There's no way to prove it, obviously, but it's completely plausible. 90.213.3.136 19:57, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

This is currently being discussed here: [1]. But it might be easier for people if I copy what I wrote there so it's here too.

I once read a comment on this by an editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. She had been asked why they didn't record the Gaelic etymology here, and she answered by going through the evidence and showing why she did not think it was plausible. Unfortunately I have no idea where to find that, so for the moment you have to decide whether to believe me as a source or not. But I have studied language history myself, and I recognized her arguments as being exactly the way you would expect a linguist to think.

She started by showing that the development of "smashing" as a part of "smash" to "smashing" = "good" is linguistically easy. There is no formal change at all, and the semantic change is an example of a very wide-spread phenonomenon where "bad" means "good". Think of "to spank" > "a spanking new car". On the other hand, a development from "Is math sin" > "smashing" has all kinds of problems, not least that you are using a whole sentence as an adjective, which could only be done by someone who didn't understand the Gaelic. I suppose one person could say "Is math sin!", someone else who doesn't know the language could pick it up and say "Smashing!" and later it could become an adjective, but that is semantically and grammatically far more complicated.

The second main point was that English has borrowed very few words from Gaelic, and when it does, you can always trace the cultural origins. The word "Tory" comes from Irish, and the first use of the word in English can be shown to be in Ireland. But tracing back the history of "smashing" in English does not show evidence that it started in Ireland or Scotland, or among expats of those countries. So while it is not utterly impossible, some actual evidence would be required. Otherwise, any linguist is going to accept the easier explanation.

As far as Wiktionary is concerned, the fact that we don't have 100% proof is not enough reason to include what is likely to be misinformation. You should not have this folksy etymology on the page, even as an alternative view, unless you can find at least one reputable linguistic source which holds that view. --Doric Loon (talk) 14:37, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

• I agree that misinformation should not be presented as the scholarly view. However, when misinformation is all any of us can find, then I think that misinformation should be included, with clear indication of how and why it is misinformation. Simply leaving a blank suggests that we just haven't bothered to put anything there. The purported Gaelic origin for smashing appears to be commonly mentioned enough, even in educational contexts like a BBC audio curriculum for Ulster Irish, to warrant mention here as well -- with notes about the caveats, and that this is not a linguistically-backed etymology.

Doric Loon, it would be great if you could find that OED editor's quote, especially if it's online and we could link to it in the ===References=== section. Even if you can't find it, I think the smashing entry would be better served by having something under the ===Etymology=== header that describes the current state of knowledge about the origins of the term with regard to the very good sense. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:16, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not finding it right now, though a letter to the OED would be the way to go if you are serious about it. Looking on-line I find mainly discussions like this: [2] where the emotionality of the supporters of the Gaelic etymology make me very suspicious that they are being influenced by a non-scholarly agenda. (I speak Gaelic, by the way, so I would love this to be true - I just don't jump on bandwaggons.) I'm afraid I can't spend more time on this, so do what you think is right, but be critical. --Doric Loon (talk) 21:37, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

• Thank you, Doric Loon. I think Smurrayinchester's reworking here and follow-up here suffices, at least for now. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:30, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think that is now a very good statement of the best information we have. Thank you both. --Doric Loon (talk) 11:55, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Etymology of words in English deriving from Gàidhlig is always fairly unlikely as written evidence is usually used to justify the originality of a particular word. Since Gàidhlig has been ignored for so long in Scotland, there is less written evidence available, not forgetting that Gàidhlig culture has been far more oral in nature anyway.Neil8r (talk) 14:53, 23 September 2019 (UTC)