This is a quote from his wikipedia page:

"Before I left Liscarrigane, I had never heard from anybody's mouth phrases such as "tá mé", "bhí mé", "bhí siad"; I always used to hear "táim", "bhíos", "bhíodar", etc. Little things! – but little things that come repeatedly into conversation. A taut mode of expression, as against one that is lax, makes for finish in speech; in the same manner, a lax mode of expression as against the taut, makes for speech that is deficient. Besides, the taut speech possesses a force and a vigour that cannot be contained in speech that is falling apart...The loose mode of expression is prominent in Gaelic today and English is nothing else. English has fallen apart completely."


What is a "taut" mode of expression? What is a "lax" mode?
I see he gives 3 examples, one being 'tá mé' and 'táim' with the former being "lax" and the latter being "taut", but I still don't understand exactly what he means by these terms.

What are some ways the the standardized Gaelic may be considered "lax" whilst his classic Cork Irish is "taut"?

Can somebody give me some examples of why 'English has fallen apart completely'? Can somebody enlighten me to some shortcomings of the English language? For example, not having a real 2nd person plural (It's too bad we make fun of people in the south who say "y'all").

English is the only language I know and I have no background in linguistics, but I'm very much interested in ways that learning Cork Irish would give me a stronger avenue of expression than my mother tongue of English, which has apparently "completely fallen apart"

I assume that by 'lax' he meant to say that those expressions which do not use conjugations (i.e. tá mé, bhí mé, bhí siad) were of grammatical laziness and or inferiority, that an attempt was not being made to state the 'correct' forms. This, of course, is a completely incorrect way of thinking. The so called 'lax' forms that he provides are that of other dialects that do not use conjugation nearly as much as Cork Irish. going off this definition, Ó Laoghaire would have had some 'lax' forms himself, for example, how many times in his works can one find the use of tánn sibh? According to these examples which Ó Laoghaire has given, the 'taut' or 'finished' mode of expression would be táthaoi, which is found only few times in his works, and indeed, would be uncommon in native Muskerry conversation even during his time, and is almost completely if not entirely extinct in most modern dialects of native Irish. Ó Laoghaire's works are among the most comprehensive and valuable ones from the standpoint of the Irish language, and his dedication to his own language is nothing short of brilliant, but at the sametime he had a quite poluted view regarding the dialects of the Irish language, that was that Muskerry Irish was a superior dialect among others. In fact, his most famous work (Séadna) was written for the main purpose of providing an example of what Irish was truely correct versus that which others spoke. In reality, all versions of truely native Irish are equally valid, and provide as the most effective resources when speaking of truly 'correct' Irish.

_________________
I'm an intermediate speaker of the Corca Dhuibhne dialect of Irish and also have knowledge on the old spelling
Soir gaċ síar, fé ḋeireaḋ thíar

The actual quote is this:



He uses the terms módh dlúithte and módh sgurtha. Where the English translation uses "taut mode" and "lax [mode]", what he intended was probably something closer to "the condensed/compounded form or speech is more elegant than the interrupted/separated form". This is an obvious reference to the way that tá and mé are combined in the form táim, and so on.

dlúithe -> táite
sgurtha -> scartha

in current grammar descriptions ( in English: "synthetic" and "analytic" forms)

Oh okay. I do find the synthetic forms of the verb conjugations to be more appealing to me.

Does anyone think that Gaelic can express stronger communication than English for any reason? Like perhaps the fact that nouns have 4 forms (nom-accuse, dative, genitive, plural) where as in English we only have the singular and plural. Also, I was thinking the fact that the way identity is expressed in Irish is different then from how, for example, a state of being is expressed.

In English, we could say:
I am a child of God
I am hungry

Where as in Irish these sentences have different constructions altogether. I feel like this gives Irish more of an ability to communicate ideas in some sense.

Also, I haven't looked too much into the imperative and subjunctive forms of verb conjugations yet, but just the fact that there is a separate form of verbs for giving orders (imperative) makes me think that once again, Irish crystalizes communication of ideas in a more refined way.

Again, I have no background in linguistics and only speak English, and I'm really just thinking out loud here. I appreciate all of your patience with my amateur status and humbleness in willing to share your expertise. Salem.