You speak English. You’ve heard most of Ireland does as well. You may have heard the Irish speak the best english in the world. In any case, the last thing you may be expecting is communication difficulties on your visit to the emerald isle.
Most of the potentential pitfalls in your conversations may come from the slang used here. This is the fifteenth in a series I’ve been publishing of some common Irish slang that used to confuse us when we first arrived.
Punter - Your average paying customer.
In the states, a punt is something you do to a ball. It took be quite a while to realise that Irish folks were not referring to some vague sports figure when they said things like, “Your average punter.”
This word is used quite frequently in Ireland to describe people in pubs or an audience member at a sports match. Its usage can bleed over into a term referring to people in general. The word comes from the name for the old Irish currency - the punt was the basic unit of currency in Ireland, just like the dollar
would be in the states (not to be confused with the British “pound,” which the “punt” often is).
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People use the word punter in the same context quite a lot in the UK too.
I don’t think punter comes form the old Irish currency the punt. Firstly like Colm pointed out above they use the word punter in the UK also. Secondly up until 1979 the Irish pound was tied to the pound sterling, so we didn’t really call it the punt. It only became known as the punt when it no longer had the same value as the pound sterling and using the Irish word for pound “punt” became a convenient way to distinguish the two currencies.
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