Here’s a quick fix so you never see ‘St Patty’s Day’ again

14 Mar 2016

Irish people, and by extension our diaspora, seem to take great offence from the St Patrick’s Day celebration changing into St Patty’s Day, so, to avoid seeing the dreaded Patty online, here’s a quick fix.

#PaddyNotPatty is a fairly common trending topic this time of year. A response to the growing trend in the US to misattribute St Patrick’s Day to someone called Patricia, presumably, or maybe even a burger, #PaddyNotPatty is a fine way for slighted Irish people to vent a little pointless frustration towards online errors.

Tweets will be responded to, Facebook comments condemned, all with no great resolution. Those used to saying Patty will continue using the term flippantly, those insulted and offended will find more examples to insult and offend them.

But what, if anything, can we do to alleviate things? Well, a Chrome extension to protect us from offensive, flagrant disregard for history’s greatest snake-slayer is at hand.

St Patty’s Day: An optical illusion

In The Company of Huskies, the marketing agency behind the wonderful Dublin traffic tool that was around over Christmas, has just popped up with ‘No More Patty’, which replaces Patty with Paddy anywhere you see it online.

It’s a trivial, short-term fix for a trivial, once-a-year issue, but it might be the best option out there for you.

Elsewhere, some creative people online are getting their drawing hat on to warn the Patty brigade against messing with Paddy’s good name. For example, TwistedDoodles posted this lovely graphic on Facebook yesterday for us all to enjoy.

PaddynotPaddy

A colourful reminder of what all those snakes died for, via TwistedDoodles/Facebook

Main image via Shutterstock

Gordon Hunt was a journalist with Silicon Republic

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