When I have nothing better to do, I sometimes worry about the future of jig acting. Like the Bornean orangutan, it is critically endangered. And if we don’t do anything to conserve it, jig acting will be as extinct as the dodo in a few years.
Jig acting is a uniquely Irish activity, comparable to hurling and sean nós singing, and we have a sacred duty to preserve it, just as we protect the Waterford Blaa or the Connemara Hill Lamb. Unlike hurling, jig acting requires no skill. For the uninitiated among us, jig acting is the art of having a bit of fun and generally being devilish. I’m not sure if it’s limited to the west coast, but I know some of my fellow Dubliners prefer cod acting to jig acting. Trick acting is also considered.
I can’t remember ever being encouraged to start dancing, but as children, hardly a day went by when we weren’t told to stop. Places where dancing was particularly frowned upon were school, Mass, when the news was on, and during the occasional Rosary. Of course, these were the very occasions when it was very tempting to do a bit of pretend dancing. There’s nothing more satisfying and life-affirming than making someone laugh who shouldn’t be laughing, is there?
Jig acting has been used to great effect in the past by writers such as Liam O’ Flaherty and John McGahern. I did a quick search online to see if it was still around and came across a few cases of jig acting being practiced in certain corners of the internet. On Reddit, someone blamed Putin for an air raid siren and accused him of doing “his usual jig acting”. An article on TheJournal.ie raised the question of how far off the coast of Cork the Russian Navy plans to do its jig acting. And while still in Cork, a letter writer to the Irish Examiner called for action against goalies who practice jig acting.
So the good news is that the jig is not for jig acting, but we need to be patriotic and use the phrase at least once a week to keep it in use. And mix a little cod acting and trick acting into the mix too, for good measure.
And while we’re at it, we also need to protect some other expressions that are in danger of being lost.
I would prioritize “doing weird” as something every baby did years ago. Maybe modern babies are so confident in today’s social media savvy world that they don’t do weird things anymore? Or do they all come out of the womb so traumatized by today’s world that they do weird things all the time and so it goes unnoticed?
The issue of “foostering” also needs our attention. We are still the best nation in the world at feedering, but its continued existence is not guaranteed. We should, of course, be the leading nation for feedering, since we invented the word, after all, and took it from the Irish word “fústar,” meaning agitation or fidgeting. Foostering can be practiced anywhere and usually involves some rummaging around, perhaps in a bulky handbag, glove compartment, or messy drawer. To successfully engage in feedering, your behavior must annoy someone nearby. You appear to be doing something, but accomplish precisely nothing.
Stan Carey’s Irish English language blog, Sentence First, devotes itself to the word, noting that James Joyce used it in the “Lotus Eaters” chapter of Ulysses to describe a man rummaging in his pockets for change. For many years it was incorrectly corrected to “fostering,” an error that the Joyce Project says crept in during production of the first edition.
Poet Paul Durcan indulged in an extended period of feedering in his book-length poem Christmas Day. This is obviously one of the most popular days for feedering, especially if you started your Irish coffee too early. Suddenly you can’t find your favorite spatula, the Brussels sprouts have disappeared from the fridge, and you can’t remember why you opened a cupboard door.
But despite the best efforts of these authors, I am sad to report that the younger generation is ignorant of the art of feedering. Ask any 10-year-old if his teacher has ever accused him of feedering and you will know what I mean.
Now is the time to act, because if we stop taking care of everything and dawdle around, we will go down the wrong path.
And before we know it, we forget how to get these messages out to the press.
And then we are completely at the end of our rope.
