While looking through YouTube trying to find you guys a little something something to pay tribute to my people on their day (that’d be the Irish and St. Patrick’s Day, duh), I came across this news clip from New Haven, CT local news. Turns out that this year, for the first time ever, the police are cracking down on public drinking during the annual St. Patty’s Day parade. Um, whack?
Look, I get it. People get drunk and they smash mailboxes and it’s harder to watch them so more police have to be out and that might mean some people are working overtime and it’s very expensive for the community, blah blah blah. That’s great. HOWEVER, I’d like to point out something: It’s so rare that an entire community is able to meet for a public drink while enjoying something they have in common, which is their love of standing outside and drinking. If you don’t foster relationships within the community, the whole town suffers. Crime rates will go up and stuff, I’m sure of it. No one’s going to rob their friend Peter and his wife Jen that they met at the parade and shared a brew with, but they might rob the weirdos up the street with the dog that shits on your lawn, you see what I’m saying?
Get it together, New Haven! Let the people have their drinks!
Happy St. Patricks Day, BTW.
I will never understand why Americans write St Patty’s Day. Take it from a real live Irish person – it’s spelt St. Paddy’s Day. Is it because they sound alike in a North American accent?? Bizarre.
Listen, real live Irish person: I’ve listened to enough U2, Sarah McLachlan, and Sinead O’Connor music to feel that I know a thing or two about Ireland.
But, seriously, Patty is a truncation of Patrick. American’s refer to the patron saint of Ireland as St. Patrick, in English. Paddy is short for Pedraig, the Gaelic form of Patrick.
It’s understandable that most Americans use Patty, since most Americans don’t know Gaelic, and since Patty is an acceptable truncation of Patrick.
Also, Paddy has been invoked in some offensive ways in American history (e.g. Paddy Wagon), so non-Irish American’s have all the more reason to shy away from the use of Paddy over Patty.
*so non-Irish Americans have all the more…*
I’m glad Sarah McLachlan has taught you a lot about Ireland, because she’s CANADIAN born and raised.
arrogant bitch.
I hope that you did realize that my first paragraph was laced with sarcasm — and quite obviously so, particularly given the way that I started the second paragraph.
Is there a website we can offer LOL so they he/she can get the stick removed from his/her ass?
Or maybe a site where they can purchase a sense of humor. My 5 year old could smell skeelo’s sarcasm from the other room.
d, go bathe your 5 year old.
Ok take a breath Skeelo. It was just a question not a criticism. The shortened form of Patrick is Paddy. That’s the point I was trying to make. Or do people called Patrick in the US get called Patty instead?
Also, nice try attempting to look edu-ma-cated but Pedraig is not a name – it’s Padraig or soemtimes Padraic. Sorry.
My bad, Huido: Thought I’d written Padraig. If it pleases you, okay, misspelling a name, in the midst of accurately sharing the basics of the story — an interesting story that some may not know — of Paddy versus Patty, really shows how un- “edu-ma-cated” I really am. Silly me.
Nice try pawning off your original comment as a simple question. Most reasonable people would read your comment as a criticism, given your use of “bizarre” and your sluggish dig at North American accents.
Anyway, it’s amusing to me that anyone read my first comment to you and thought that I was truly incensed at what you’d written.
You know that bizarre means strange or unusual not stupid, right? Also how was it a dig at North American accents?! I really want to know if they sound the same to you. Nobody answered my question so I assume it did seem like I was being rude. Not my intention at all.
Lighten up everyone, it is St Paddy’s/Patty’s Day after all! Now go get wasted – there’s something we can all agree on. :)
Perhaps you don’t realize it, Huido, but you have a harsh way of communicating with people.
For a sample of this harshness, read the first sentence of every post that you’ve made thus far; these sentences can all be reasonably interpreted as combative.
Yes, I know what bizarre means (and it’s generally not a benign thing to have a stranger arbitrarily use it to describe my mores and/or vernacular). Thanks for asking.
I only responded to your first post to move beyond what I saw as criticism to the more substantive back story of Paddy versus Patty — the story that touches on the point that you later said you were trying to make in your first post, but never actually got around to making (all you really did was impart your dictum that Paddy is correct).
We can agree to disagree. You can even call yourself the better person, if you want to; that’s not the kind of thing that I’m inclined to sweat.
Anywho… Happy St. Patrick’s Day, all!
shut up nyerds
I, for one, got the sarcasm and it was HILARIOUS!
@Huido
Take it from a real live American, we use “spelled” here, not “spelt”…
Sara, well done on speaking American English. Bravo! Good job!! Spelt = British and Australian English. Check it out on the Cambridge Dictionary online http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=76424&dict=CALD
What is with all the hostility from you people? Lighten up seriously. It was a cultural observation.
Too funny. Good one.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuunny post” says the girl on her fifth pint of Guinness (In’s 10:30 pm in Ukraine right now so shut up)
.
oops—that comment was specifically directed at Molls
Internet in a bar= commenting fail
Not only is Sarah McLachlan Canadian — she’s adopted!
Skeelo, you come across as more combative than Huido.
You also come across as a know-it-all, which is funny given your factual and grammatical errors.
Also, you did sweat it, because you wrote that last post just to ‘win’.
You were — very evidently — ‘gotten to’.
Hmmm… Does H stand for Huido???
Your thought and “gotcha” strings are a bit off
Ha! No, sorry. I just didn’t care enough to respond to you before.
Hi Huido. Great to hear back from you. This really is one of the best ways to show that you still care.
Hope you had a nice St. Patty’s Day.
1. we write st. patty’s day because it st. paTrick and not st. paDrick.
2. i’m not saying the tightening up of drinking laws is necessarily good, but last sunday, in Montreal, during the parade (which has been held incident-free for the last 185 years or so), a young drunk man on a float stumbled off of it and slipped under the wheels of the truck carrying it. he died.
so let’s keep in mind that this public drinking can be dangerous…
Yeah well, the short name for Patrick is PADDY in Ireland, not Patty. lol wtf.
and correct me if i’m wrong, but this is an Irish holiday.
ooooh possessive!!!
molls it’s fucking connecticut, which is a puritan state. get your shit together girl.
I live in CT. I didn’t go down to New Haven for the “festivities” but my friend did and she still had a pretty good time. It was raining that day so I don’t think anyone minded staying inside.
Well, I’m Catholic, and he’s an f’in saint. And I call it St. Patty’s Day. So, there.
And as a Catholic, you are obviously more than qualified as an authority on linguistic matters. I’ll alert the Irish Embassy about their citizens’ error. Tool.
Blergh.
Well I’m an actual linguist and there are few hard rules on the spelling of slang, but when a given culture pronounces two informal words in an interchangeable manner, tradition would dictate that they can spell it in intechangeable ways, with favour falling on the retention of the original form in the initial stages of the word’s conception, likely flowing toward the phonetic form(in this case doesn’t matter) over time.
And in the name of St Patrick, that was tough to phrase drunkenly. Apologies for errors.
Sigh. It was a joke.
NEVER joke in the comments section! You will be taken always and only at face value, and people will pick a fight over it.
Idiots on the internet: know about ’em.
If you have ever been on a train or subway on St Patrick’s Day in NYC, you might feel differently. Drunk people, puking people,screaming drunk puking people-oh and let’s not forget the guys pissing in the street. Just sayin’.
“No one’s going to rob their friend Peter and his wife Jen that they met at the parade and shared a brew with, but they might rob the weirdos up the street with the dog that shits on your lawn, you see what I’m saying?”
HA!
Skeelo, no one cares dude. Funny post by Molls and boring ass comments by that clown. Happy Green Beer Day to all!
So i totally understand why molls capitalized and emphasized the spelling of st. patty/st. paddy in her post about Kate Gosline (spelling of no clue). I fail to understand people, why does it matter? Good god…
Have a good one everyone!!!!
Agreed. Arrogant people who think they need to preach long sermons to us in the comments section should work on a life away from the internet.
Loved the post Molls…
90% of the comments are ridic tho, who cares, Americans tend to spell things their own way, and then(some, not all, there are some out there who don’t give a flippity floppity floo how it’s spelled, just as long as they understand) get offended when the rest of the English speaking countries tend to stick with the original spelling of the word, you know, the one that had been spoken and written before America was discovered. Me, I prefer to make up my own words and spelling…it keeps the rest of y’all on your toes.
everybody tends to spell thing their own way… who the hell cares how words are spelled :) the point of the post wasn’t that
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SPAM
FFS it’s Paddy’s. And you’re not fucking Irish anyway, why the fuck do you even celebrate it?