Irish Americans -- Humor; Irish-American wit and humor
“Well, like a good game, it come three an' three. Three times had
victhry perched upon our banner an' thrice--I see it in th' pa-aper--had
th' flag iv th' mother counthry proclaimed that Englishmen can r-run. It
was thryin' on me narves an' I wanted to yell whin th' tie was r-run
off but th' man fr'm Matsachoosetts says: 'Contain ye'ersilf,' he says.
'Don't allow ye'er frinzied American spirit to get away with ye'er
manners,' he says. 'Obsarve.' he says, 'th' ca'm with which our brother
Anglo-Saxon views th' scene,' he says. 'Ah!' he says, 'they're off
an' be th' jumpin' George Wash'nton, I bet ye that fellow fr'm West
Newton'll make that red-headed, long-legged, bread-ballasted Englishman
look like thirty cints. 'Hurroo,' he says. 'Go on, Harvard,' he says.
'Go on,' he says. 'Rah, rah, rah,' he says. 'Ate him up, chew him up,'
he says. 'Harvard!' he says.”
“I looked ar-round at th' ca'm dispassyonate Englishman. He dhropped his
eye-glass so he cud see th' race an' he had his cane in th' air. 'Well
r-run,' he says. 'Well r-run, Cambridge,' he says. 'Pull him down,'
he says. 'Run over him,' he says. 'Thrip him up,' he says. 'They can't
r-run,' he says, 'except whin they're Ph'lipinos behind thim,' he says.
'Well r-run,' he says, an' he welted th' man fr'm Matsachoosetts with
his cane. 'Be careful what ye're doin' there,' says th' Anglo-Saxon.
'If it wasn't f'r th' 'liance I'd punch ye'er head off,' he says. 'An','
says th' ca'm Englishman, 'if it wasn't f'r our common hurtage,' he
says, 'I'd make ye jump over th' gran' stand,' he says. 'Th' English
always cud beat us r-runnin',' says the sage iv Matsachoosetts. 'Th'
Americans start first an' finishes last,' says th' Englishman. An' I had
to pull thim apart.”
“Whether it is that our American colleejans spinds too much iv their
lung power in provin' their devotion to what Hogan calls their
Almy Matthers or not, I dinnaw, but annyhow, we had to dhrag th'
riprisintative iv our branch iv th' Anglo-Saxon an' Boheemyan
civilization in th' three-mile race fr'm undher two thousand iv our
cousins or brothers-in-law that was ca'mly an' soberly, but hurridly an'
noisily chargin' acrost th' thrack to cheer their own man.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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