![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/83\/2013\/03\/green-st-patricks-day.jpg\" "\\"green-st-patricks-day\\"")
<\/a>I\u2019m not sure what it is. Perhaps something in my Irish-English-Polish(Jewish)-Scottish heritage and dirt-road, blue sky, tumble-weed, Montana upbringing, but I just don\u2019t understand a lot of \u2026. how should I put it? Conservatism?<\/strong> Orthodox traditionalism?<\/p>\nNow, today is St. Patrick\u2019s Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n This has always been a fun holiday for my family as yesterday (March 16th) is the birthday of my father, Patrick James Whitaker (where I get my Irish\/English). Montana has a pretty large Irish population, as \u2013 as far as I know \u2013 the growth in immigration there coincided fairly well with the Potato Famine in Ireland<\/a> in the mid-19th century. So, growing up there we celebrated by\u00a0<\/strong>putting up our shamrocks,\u00a0<\/strong>wearing our green, and pinching the poor souls who forgot. And, as across much of America, we often referred to the holiday as \u201cSt Patty\u2019s Day.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Gasp! Horror!<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure how long this\u00a0atrocity\u00a0has gone on, but now there is help:\u00a0paddynotpatty.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n Each and every year millions of Irish, Irish-ish<\/em>\u00a0and amateur alcoholics are needlessly distracted from their Holy Tradition of drinking themselves into a stupor in the name of\u00a0Saint Patrick<\/strong>, a Roman Briton slave holding the dubious honour of bringing Christianity to an island that would use it as another convenient excuse to blatter the hell out of each other for centuries.<\/p>\n The source of this terrible distraction?<\/strong><\/p>\n An onslaught of half-hearted, dyed-green references to\u00a0St. Patrick\u2019s Day<\/strong>\u00a0as\u00a0St. Patty\u2019s Day<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It gnaws at them. It riles them up. It makes them want to fight\u2026 you know, more than usual.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n IT\u2019S\u00a0PADDY<\/strong>, NOT\u00a0PATTY<\/strong>.\u00a0EVER.<\/em><\/p>\n SAINT PATRICK\u2019S DAY?<\/strong>\u00a0GRAND.<\/em><\/p>\n PADDY\u2019S DAY?<\/strong>\u00a0SURE, DEAD-ON.<\/em><\/p>\n ST. PAT\u2019S?<\/strong>\u00a0AYE, IF YE MUST.<\/em><\/p>\n ST. PATTY?<\/strong>\u00a0NO, YE GOAT!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Hold on.\u00a0Here are three reasons to welcome the \u2018tt\u2019 in St Patty\u2019s Day:<\/strong><\/p>\n Gawker\u2019s article<\/a> on this is particularly vexing:<\/p>\n \u201cPatty\u201d is a woman\u2019s name. The nickname used for a man named Patrick, for example, the man named Patrick who is credited with converting great swaths of Ireland to Christianity, is \u201cPaddy,\u201d from the Irish\u00a0Padraig<\/em>\u2026.<\/p>\n Well then you are just being willfully wrong. We have offered you knowledge and you have taken it, examined it, and deliberately rejected it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cPatty is a woman\u2019s name \u2013 Paddy is for boys\u201d \u2013 what is this, the 3rd grade?<\/strong> While I have yet to meet a man named Patty, a friend of mine did point out that there is at least\u00a0one woman named Paddy<\/a>\u00a0out there (she\u2019s a writer based in my college town in Montana). I have meat Seans of both genders, and Kellys, and I would imagine a few others. Childhood is tough enough; we shouldn\u2019t be reinforcing or encouraging gender-based bullying: \u201cyour parents are \u2018willfully wrong\u2019 \u2013 they gave you a boy\u2019s (girl\u2019s) name!\u201d<\/p>\n Boys named Patty? Sure! Girls named Paddy? Sure!<\/p>\n A boy named Sue? (Well, be careful<\/a>.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s only been about 80 days from the last holiday I apparently screw up in spelling (Xmas); and this year it seemed that conservative Christians were at their most resolute with baby Jesus everywhere under the banner \u201cKeep Christ in Christmas.\u201d Never mind that \u201cX\u201d or the Greek letter \u201cchi\u201d, along with \u2018rho\u2019 have long been Christian symbols<\/a>. If only these contemporary Christians could go back and educate the Emperor Constantine on his \u2018mistake\u2019.<\/p>\n As an American living in England, I know well the slippery slope of \u2018correct spellings\u2019 of things<\/strong>\u00a0(not to mention \u2018correct\u2019 pronunciations!). Luckily most sane people accept that \u2018colour\u2019 is the British English spelling and \u2018color\u2019 is American English. Nobody, to my knowledge, is still arguing that one or the other is \u2018correct\u2019 for everyone.The Gawker article goes on to reassure us, \u201cIf you\u2019re American, the words [Patty and Paddy] are even pronounced in the same way. We\u2019re just asking that you adopt the correct spelling, which, incidentally, is already phonetic.\u201d<\/p>\n Ironically, the Gawker article begins with a big image stating \u201cIt\u2019s dd GODDAMNIT.\u201d<\/strong> If you\u2019re going to teach us about spelling and tradition, don\u2019t start off with a word like goddamnit.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong. I like a history lesson as much as the next person<\/strong>\u00a0(I\u2019m doing a PhD in a History department, FYI). But things change. A poor guy from England was denied entry to Sri Lanka yesterday<\/a> because he has a Buddha tattoo, which is deemed disrespectful to the tradition. What good does that do? Teaches us about respecting Buddhist<\/a> tradition? No. I think it\u2019s more likely to make Sri Lankans look like\u00a0intolerant\u00a0fools. (We should hold judgment I suppose, as there could be more to the story than just a tattoo \u2013 but lest we forget that just last year three tourists were arrested for posing in pictures kissing Buddha statues.)<\/p>\n Yes we should try to be respectful of other people\u2019s traditions, but we should also be kind and respectful when others violate our traditional norms.<\/p>\n Perhaps holidays like St. Patrick\u2019s Day will draw out a mix of deep love for tradition in some and openness to innovation in others. As an American \u2018mutt\u2019 who identifies mostly with his Irish heritage (I sometimes joke that I\u2019m half Irish, a quarter English, a quarter Scottish, and a quarter Polish), I think we can have both tradition and innovation as long as we mix in a healthy dose of tolerance<\/strong>.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say \u2018anything goes\u2019 of course. I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll ever get away with spelling \u2018colour\u2019 as \u2018oiaenUh\u2019. But \u2018color\u2019 seems to be well accepted, and if Google is any indicator, \u2018St Patty\u2019s Day\u2019 with its 86 million hits has become more common than \u2018St Paddy\u2019s Day\u2019 with just under 54 million.<\/p>\n Lastly, while articles like this or the one at Gawker might be interesting, and the issue is apparently important enough for at least one person to have created a whole website, with a bit of tolerance we get to see that the most important thing is not the spelling or superficial observance, the most important thing is people getting on with their lives, celebrating and coming together<\/strong>. (As in this\u00a0CBS News video: St. Patty\u2019s Day celebration packs extra emotion<\/a>.)<\/p>\n So, whether we speak with funny accents or misspell words or any other host of things that make us different and make us human, let\u2019s celebrate.<\/p>\n PS. just in case I haven\u2019t yet raised the ire of Irish fundamentalism, here\u2019s a blasphemous and hilarious rendition of Danny Boy<\/a> (recommended to me this morning by my Irish housemate \u2013 \u2018real\u2019 Irish, born and raised near Cork):<\/p>\n\n
1) Gender<\/h2>\n
No, I Mean I Just Want to Call St. Patrick\u2019s Day \u201cSt. Patty\u2019s Day\u201d<\/h3>\n
2) Spelling<\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n3) Tolerance<\/h2>\n