The art of speaking tradesman-ese

The plumber and the builder conversed at top speed, making a combined sound that was so strange it seemed likely only bats or aliens from outer space could make sense of it.

The chap who had come to price our new bathrooms was gabbling in a thick west Cork accent, giving absolutely nothing away to me, while the builder boyfriend was machine-gunning him back in extreme cockney.

However, while it sounded to the untrained ear like the two men were speaking different languages, it quickly became apparent that they were, in fact, completely in tune with each other and understood each other perfectly.

This is because they weren’t speaking English or Irish, I realised, or any kind of dialect indigenous to a geographical place. They were both speaking tradesman-ese. This is the universal language all men who do manual work speak to each other in.