"Glas, bán agus oráiste nó dearg, bán agus gorm?"
Translation:Green, white and orange or red, white and blue?
17 Comments
Is this sentence refering to the colors of American/British flags (red, white and blue) and the Irish flag(green, white and orange)?
1781
Without context, one can’t provide a definitive answer, but my guess would be that it refers to the colors of the flag of Ireland and of the flag of the UK. Note that Article 7 of the Irish constitution uses flannbhuí rather than oráiste to describe that third of the Irish flag. (Flannbhuí is a compound word — “blood red” + “yellow”. Oráiste is not traditionally used as a color adjective.)
I believe not -- it pains me, as an Oxford-comma fan, to say. Of the languages I'm currently studying only Danish (in certain crircumstances) provides for the "serial comma", though there may be others.
P.S. One of the funniest language-usage remarks I've read for some time is this, from the French-language Wikipedia:
"La plupart des manuels de style de la presse écrite déconseillent son usage, peut-être à cause du manque de place."
Wow! I wonder how many millions of newspaper column-inches have been saved over the years by the omission of the occasional serial comma?
I'd venture to suggest that far more paper-producing forests have been sacrificed in the cause of perpetuating that French practice of inserting a space in front of every question mark and colon! :)
Irish, like English doesn't require the Oxford comma - I'm not sure where "recognizing" comes into it.
The Oxford comma is just an optional style element - you can use it or not use it, in English or in Irish. I'm not aware of a canonical Style guide for Irish, but it is not used in An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, (for example An Aimsir Chaite, an Aimsir Ghnáthchaite agus an Modh Coinníollach and Ainmfhocail dar tús Consan seachas d, t agus s).
Funnily enough, while it is often called the Oxford comma it is actually much more common in the US than in Ireland or Britain.
I think that by "recognize the Oxford comma" (what I might call an sraithchamóg) cleon42 probably means "admit of its use" -- and your answer would appear to say that it does, but that the device is comparatively rarely seen.
It is fairly obvious to someone from the island of Ireland that it is referring to the Irish and British flags. However I would always say "green white and gold"
