Hi,

My mum said a word today which has me scratching my head, googling and flicking through my Irish dictionary for an answer.

She said a sentence something like "He went over anont to her?" When I asked what she meant by 'anont', it seems she meant something like 'unknown' or 'unaware'. I thought maybe it was a misspelling of unknown as 'unknownt' but I asked her to spell it and she said (or estimated) 'anont'.

So it occurred to me it might be some Hibero-English, or even Irish, word. She doesn't speak Irish so probably the former. All I can find are the words 'aineolach', meaning ignorant or to be unaware of, and 'anaithnid', meaning strange or unknown.

Does anyone have any ideas? Is this some merging of words or has she just made up a word?

Thanks,
Larry

It seems like she is spelling it as she pronounces it although it may really be "unknown" with a ""t" attached to it from the following "to". Great linguistic explanation, huh? ha ha It could also be a form of the prefix from "anonymous" in a varied form. My mother and her family used to say stuff that I will never figure out and I've got friends from Northern Scotland who speak in tongues from another universe altogether. But someone else here on the forum may have some insight into the problem. As it stands, the use of the word is anont to me.

Irish anonn = over, across, to the other side

Ah, I never thought that she was simply saying "over there" and not "unknown".

Amazing. Thank you!
Interesting she wasn't sure when quizzed about it either, and confused it with unknown based on the sound, but it's just in her vocabulary.

Go raibh maith agat!

Any chance she was saying 'anon'? I think it's archaic outside of Ireland but you still hear it around.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anon#Adverb