Talk:Irish bull

"inherently offensive and racist term"

I'll take this out if nobody objects. It's PC claptrap. I am Irish myself and quite often use terms like 'that's Irish' etc. to describe (often deliberate) absurdities which only the Irish can produce to such a high standard :-) ChrisRed (talk) 10:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

two horns of the bull

I took out this etymology: ""Irish bull" originated in this use because such expressions often fall between two different statements, as between the horns of a bull.", because it was unreferenced and contradicted by the etymology given in the OED. If this is a folk etymology, we could find a source for it as such. Lesgles (talk) 15:48, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

citations

These examples really need sourcing -- for the attirbution, and for identification as examples of Irish Bulls. DavidOaks (talk) 19:30, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Sourcing them isn't always easy, and in this article such material does not necessarily need sourcing because they are examples, usually apocryphal, of a form, not of attributable quotes. OTOH however, IMO we need someone to weed out the list; it is deteriorating into a job lot of individuals' favourites without any special notability or illustrative merit. If no one else is interested I'll get round to it, about as quickly as I get round to a lot of other unfinished business...  ;-( JonRichfield (talk) 14:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

We need a better description of the Irish bull than that in the intro. I dispute "generally unrecognized as such by its author", "the epithet Irish is a late addition", "so structured grammatically as to be logically meaningless". There is a huge difference in meaning between "bull" and "Irish bull". To resolve this we need good sourcing. Zaslav (talk) 18:36, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. The introduction is disorganized and anecdotal. It should be less jokey. 2001:171B:2274:7C21:7477:5625:3765:DCB7 (talk) 17:36, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

example

my niece who isn't Irish or Jewish and never heard of an Irish bull told me one last year. She said "I'm the worst flute player in the school orchestra and I'm still better than anybody else." yes she was trying to be funny so maybe it doesn't count. 4.249.63.146 (talk) 12:55, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

The bull is not a mistake

I object to characterizing the Irish bull as "generally unrecognized as such by its author" and "Irish bulls are so structured grammatically as to be logically meaningless". The best are carefully constructed, fully grammatical, and paradoxical (not because of grammar). Aside from "The Irish bull is pregnant" (fully grammatical), the other example I remember from a book I can't locate is the Irish M.P. before Irish independence who rose to say: "Little children that can't walk or talk are racing down the streets of Dublin crying out for Home Rule." The grammar has nothing to do with that one! Zaslav (talk) 18:33, 28 June 2019 (UTC)