r/ireland • u/[deleted] • Mar 13 '16

Paddy not Patty

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2.4k Upvotes

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u/OppressedCardboard Mar 13 '16

Legitimate question. Where did the whole "Patty" thing come from? The origin of it, I mean.

69

u/pHitzy Mar 13 '16

Yanks thinking that when we're saying "Paddy", we're actually saying "Patty", because the way we pronounce the former is how they pronounce the latter. It's the equivalent of when people write "could of" because they have heard people say "could've" and don't know the difference.

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u/KestrelLowing Mar 13 '16

Well, in most american dialects "Patty" and "Paddy" sound pretty much the exact same. We don't like to pronounce t's in the middle of words.

It's "wadder", "liddle", "sidding", etc.

2

u/pHitzy Mar 14 '16

Well, in most american dialects "Patty" and "Paddy" sound pretty much the exact same.

Yup, which is why I said, "...the way we pronounce the former is how they pronounce the latter."