Everyone I’ve showed this to kept trying to figure out whether it had something to do with free drugs for sailors. That said, everyone I showed it to was probably on drugs anyway. Daiyne‘s tattoo (by Sean Donovan, Sick Creations, Snohomish WA) has a far more responsible explanation — it means “drug free” in Gaelic.
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166 responses to “DRUG’AIL SAOR”
Pól is right it should be ““saor ó dhrugaí”.
Pól is right it should be ““saor ó dhrugaí”.
It is a shame that no one happened to come by to correct the Irish for this tattoo before it was actually inked on to the skin, and that the owner did not do her research well enough to ensure that the words were free of errors before having the tattoo done.
However, now that that is beyond fixing, it is at least a good thing that she is happy with the tattoo, regardless of its semantic interpretation.
As for the apostrophe, I simply saw that as a stylistic variant. Some typefaces are rather creative with the forms and positioning of their diacritics, and I figured this was just a typeface that had chosen to make the acute accent a bit more squiggly and placed it the same way an acute accent over a capital letter would be placed in Greek, for example.
@Risteard:
»Mo chomhghaelgóirí, ní chiallíon an focal “saor” “free” as Béarla i dtearmái eacnamaíochta. An phrása atá uaibh ná “saor in aisce”.«
Ní ar chursaí eacnamaíochta a bhí mé féin ag smaointeamh ar scor ar bith; ach tá ciall eile ar fad le ‘drugáil saor’, ná ‘drugáil gan bhac’ nó ‘drugáil gan stró’: “tá tú saor le bheith ag drugáil leat mar is mian leat”. An dtig le drugáil a bheith saor in aisce ar aon nós? Is gníomh é, agus ní bhíonn praghas ar ghníomhartha de ghnáth.
@Ebbie:
»Actually that doesn’t mean “Drug Free” or “Free Drugs” it means “free Reluctance”! Drugall means reluctance or aversion to something. Drugail comes from this word«
What utter nonsense. ‘Drugall’ is a completely different word that is not in any way related to ‘drugáil’. ‘Drugáil’ is a loan word, taken from the English word ‘drug’, with the common ‘-áil’ ending used for verbal loans, while ‘drugall’ is just a dialectal form of what is more commonly ‘drogall’.
It is a shame that no one happened to come by to correct the Irish for this tattoo before it was actually inked on to the skin, and that the owner did not do her research well enough to ensure that the words were free of errors before having the tattoo done.
However, now that that is beyond fixing, it is at least a good thing that she is happy with the tattoo, regardless of its semantic interpretation.
As for the apostrophe, I simply saw that as a stylistic variant. Some typefaces are rather creative with the forms and positioning of their diacritics, and I figured this was just a typeface that had chosen to make the acute accent a bit more squiggly and placed it the same way an acute accent over a capital letter would be placed in Greek, for example.
@Risteard:
»Mo chomhghaelgóirí, ní chiallíon an focal “saor” “free” as Béarla i dtearmái eacnamaíochta. An phrása atá uaibh ná “saor in aisce”.«
Ní ar chursaí eacnamaíochta a bhí mé féin ag smaointeamh ar scor ar bith; ach tá ciall eile ar fad le ‘drugáil saor’, ná ‘drugáil gan bhac’ nó ‘drugáil gan stró’: “tá tú saor le bheith ag drugáil leat mar is mian leat”. An dtig le drugáil a bheith saor in aisce ar aon nós? Is gníomh é, agus ní bhíonn praghas ar ghníomhartha de ghnáth.
@Ebbie:
»Actually that doesn’t mean “Drug Free” or “Free Drugs” it means “free Reluctance”! Drugall means reluctance or aversion to something. Drugail comes from this word«
What utter nonsense. ‘Drugall’ is a completely different word that is not in any way related to ‘drugáil’. ‘Drugáil’ is a loan word, taken from the English word ‘drug’, with the common ‘-áil’ ending used for verbal loans, while ‘drugall’ is just a dialectal form of what is more commonly ‘drogall’.
Daiyne, fair play to you for wanting an Irish language tattoo and for sticking to your guns. As they say in Ireland “Feck the begrudgers!”
If you are interested, the following might be a way of keeping the spirit of your original idea and making the Irish more grammatical:
DO-ḊRUGÁILTE
⁊ SAOR
“UNDRUGGABLE AND FREE”
That is, to DRUG’AIL add DO- with a hyphen, add a dot over the D, add a síneadh fada (an acute accent) over the A, and add TE to the end.
The ⁊ in front of SAOR is not a seven, but an old sign for “and”. You could also use the word “IS” or “AGUS”.
If you can’t erase the apostrophe, perhaps you can turn it into a little flower or a shamrock.
Alternatively, you can come to Irish Translation Forum for more advice. It’s free. We are volunteers and often help people get their Irish right for their tattoos.
Daiyne, fair play to you for wanting an Irish language tattoo and for sticking to your guns. As they say in Ireland “Feck the begrudgers!”
If you are interested, the following might be a way of keeping the spirit of your original idea and making the Irish more grammatical:
DO-ḊRUGÁILTE
⁊ SAOR
“UNDRUGGABLE AND FREE”
That is, to DRUG’AIL add DO- with a hyphen, add a dot over the D, add a síneadh fada (an acute accent) over the A, and add TE to the end.
The ⁊ in front of SAOR is not a seven, but an old sign for “and”. You could also use the word “IS” or “AGUS”.
If you can’t erase the apostrophe, perhaps you can turn it into a little flower or a shamrock.
Alternatively, you can come to Irish Translation Forum for more advice. It’s free. We are volunteers and often help people get their Irish right for their tattoos.
What your tattoo means is ‘Free Drugging’. The proper translation for ‘drug free’ in Irish is ‘Saor ó Dhrugaí’ which literally translates as ‘free from drugs.’ What you have looks like something from Google translation. I am a fluent Irish speaker and also a translator. By the way I’m not trying to be critical. Just saying it as it is!
What your tattoo means is ‘Free Drugging’. The proper translation for ‘drug free’ in Irish is ‘Saor ó Dhrugaí’ which literally translates as ‘free from drugs.’ What you have looks like something from Google translation. I am a fluent Irish speaker and also a translator. By the way I’m not trying to be critical. Just saying it as it is!
free drugging? drugging freely? – my head hurts.
Google Trainslate – FAIL! – me thinks.
free drugging? drugging freely? – my head hurts.
Google Trainslate – FAIL! – me thinks.
I am an Irish speaker and this tattoo is meaningless.
Drug free as in ‘free from drugs’ is ‘Saor ó dhrugaí’.
I am an Irish speaker and this tattoo is meaningless.
Drug free as in ‘free from drugs’ is ‘Saor ó dhrugaí’.
This tattoo will go down in “bad choice” history however, and it’s really important that we Irish speaking tattooed people emphasise this, this is *not* the tattoo parlour’s fault. It is the customer’s. They put on her back what she wanted.
This tattoo will go down in “bad choice” history however, and it’s really important that we Irish speaking tattooed people emphasise this, this is *not* the tattoo parlour’s fault. It is the customer’s. They put on her back what she wanted.
This tattoo is just so wrong it’s ridiculous.
BTW, while “saor” does mean “free” in most contexts, when it modifies a noun it means “cheap” (it’s the opposite of “daor.”) So basically what this says is “Cheap drugging.”
This tattoo is just so wrong it’s ridiculous.
BTW, while “saor” does mean “free” in most contexts, when it modifies a noun it means “cheap” (it’s the opposite of “daor.”) So basically what this says is “Cheap drugging.”