[tpmx]

I call bullshit.

Ireland has filled this role because:

a) you speak Irish English (~English), which is easily understandable by most English speakers

b) Ireland has consistently offered insanely low tax rates to american companies wishing to establish themselves in Europe. (This is coming to an end.)

That is it.

[ajscanlan]

> a) you speak something roughly approaching English

Whoa there, down with that sort of stuff now friend. That's not a nice thing to say.

[tpmx]

I thought quite a bit about that line. I ended up editing it to "~English" in the end, perhaps ten minutes before you commented. Don't you think that's fair? Irish English, to me, seems like a distinct/unique language. Very similar to English, sure.

I mean.. I don't think americans are speaking English, typically, if that's any help. They're speaking American, which is a fork of English from some point in time.

[gwd]

The word you're looking for is "dialect".

[tpmx]

Nah.

These people were just looking to downvote someone who were against their tax evasion cash cow. That's where their outrage comes from.

Any other outrage is a misdirection.

[gwd]

"They're speaking a sort of English" certainly sounds demeaning to me. The people in Ireland (and the US, and India, and Singapore) are speaking English -- different dialects of English. And FWIW, many of the divergences between American and British English, such as dropping the 'r' at the end of syllables, are actually changes on the British side after the colonies were formed.

[AmericanChopper]

Not agreeing with the parent commenter, but the differences are much less trivial than you’re making them out to be. I used to live with a Scottish guy, and he had to make a considerable effort to be understood at all in America. If we were out and he wanted to say something to me privately, he’d just say it in his normal Scottish English, and nobody else would have a clue what he said. “Singlish” is also very different. I’ve travelled with friends to Singapore who absolutely could not communicate with Singlish speakers.

[rsynnott]

(b) has largely already come to an end. And yet still they come (though if you buy something from Amazon these days the money probably goes via their Luxembourg subsidiary, not the Irish one like it used to...)

[secfirstmd]

I said that they came for the taxes already but stay for other reasons.

[tpmx]

Yeah.. no.

[secfirstmd]

You seem like you have a bee in your bonnet. Have you spent or worked much in Ireland? You seem to be an expert on both our use of our national second language and what working in the country is like. Or are you you just firing randomly on HN today because you aren't willing to engage with the other points that I made? (I agreed about companies coming to Ireland for tax but staying for other reasons remember)