Conor McGregor is many things to many people: 'notorious', champion, warrior, surrogate father. Now he can add sociolinguist to that list.
A number of rumours circulated last night that McGregor was going to make an appearance at Wrestlemania:
Conor McGregor's two most recent Twitter follows are Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. Surprise in store for WrestleMania tonight?
— Mike Bohn (@MikeBohn) April 3, 2016
McGregor then took to twitter to dispel the rumours in typically blunt manner.
I am not at Wrestlemania. I'm in me gaf.
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) April 3, 2016
Before then immediately kickstarting the rumours again:
Or am I...?
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) April 3, 2016
In the end, McGregor did not make an appearance at the event, leaving many fans disappointed (or delighted depending on your desire to see the worlds of MMA and WWE co-mingling). Outweighing the disappointed fans, however, were befuddled fans.
An athlete with international appeal using such a colloquial phrase was likely to cause a lot of confusion among fans, so we waded through the replies to the tweet. We found the usual tweets from supporters calling McGregor their daddy, along with a number of fans utterly bewildered at what the hell a 'gaf' is. Some simply asked what it meant:
@TheNotoriousMMA whats a gaf?
— Spit Williams (@IAMKARNAGE) April 3, 2016
At the root of the confusion was a different American interpretation of the meaning of 'gaf':
@TheNotoriousMMA erm...gaf must mean something totally different in Ireland than in the US 🙊 #CulturalDivide
— heatherpaige (@heather_paige) April 3, 2016
Urban Dictionary is to blame for the origin of the confusion:
A number of people then cleared up the confusion, pointing out that McGregor was referring to his house rather than quoting a phrase from an archaic and insulting vernacular:
There you have it. McGregor has highlighted another of the Irish words that Americans struggle with, joining the ranks of 'runners', 'savage' and 'chipper'.
McGregor's a man of such myriad talents, he doesn't even realise all of them.
