Saint Patrick’s Day is on Monday, so many people are celebrating it this weekend. Here in America, even those who aren’t at all Irish or Catholic love taking the opportunity to celebrate with a Guinness and some corned beef and cabbage (mine are in the fridge waiting!).
One result is there’s a whole lot of talk about St. Patty’s Day across the internet.
But not so fast!
The proper form is actually St. Paddy’s Day. In fact, one disgruntled man has created a whole website dedicated to teaching people the proper spelling. It’s that important.
PaddyNotPatty.com is “a modest proposal to the people of the new world.” It explains the distinction as follows:
- Paddy is derived from the Irish, Pádraig: the source of those mysterious, emerald double-Ds.
- Patty is the diminutive of Patricia, or a burger, and just not something you call a fella.
So if you don’t want to cause your Irish friends to be “needlessly distracted from their Holy Tradition of drinking themselves into a stupor in honour of Saint Patrick and the wee island he adopted as home,” don’t wish them a Happy St. Patty’s Day. It just ain’t right.
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