The Other Press Mailbag in Ot Ore ee POON The Editor The Other Press Douglas College Dear Editor: | recently picked up a copy of your March 16" issue, which you have labelled “Kissing drunken Paddy's (presumably you mean Paddies) since 1976”. As an Irish woman, | take exception to the racial slur — both the tagging of my people as Paddies and the implication that we are a nation of drunks. ! wonder why it is politically acceptable to insutt Irish people and not others. | doubt, for exampie, that you would label one of your issues “kissing drunken sambos” or “kissing drunken chinks”. Yours truly, _ ae Wow. Obviously, we have offended this reader with our reckless use of that nasty, racist slur “Paddy.” Of course, we did not realize that Paddy was a nasty, racist slur, and did not intend to use it in that way. As we have said in the past, a great number of our staff and contributors here at the Other Press are Canadians of Irish descent. And proud of it. We would like to assure our readers that regardless of any associations or pre- conceptions other people may have had of the word “Paddy,” ours were certainly not rooted in any kind of cultural hatred. In fact, when the Other Press staff and contributors were shown this complaint, they were all quite shocked. Their responses included: “Seriously? That’s what she complained about? I could easily find ten more offensive things in that issue.” “Oh man! We punctuated ‘Paddy’s’ wrong? How embarrassing!” “T guess that stereotype about Irish people having a sense of humour was wrong too.” “Whoa. Did she really say ‘chink’?”’ And, finally, “Really? We had a St. Patrick’s Day issue?” We here at the Other Press realize there may be some confusion as to the origin of the word “Paddy.” We understand that language is a powerful and fascinating tool, but that, unfortunately, in the wrong hands this tool can also be used as a weapon. So, being journalists and all that, we decided (for once) to do our research. According to British English:_A to Zed by Norman W. Schur, the word “Paddy” is slang for “tantrum,” and originated as the nickname for Padraig, which is old Irish for Patrick. Being that there were an abundance of males by the name of Patrick in Ireland, the name became commonly used for the protagonist in Irish jokes. Over time, based on a misguided cultural generalization that Irish people were short tem- pered, the nickname of “Paddy” somehow evolved to represent the word “tantrum.” Of course, the Other Press does not wish to encourage the use of “cultural ‘ generalizations,” and we apologize if any people of Irish descent might have been offended by our use of a word that might have implied that their ancestors might have had a bad temper. We also hope that those offended Irish descendants weren’t so angered by the one instance of the word “Paddy” on the cover of our St. Patrick’s Day issue, that they were unable to appreciate our celebration of Irish cul- ture both on and in that same issue. In addition, we pledge to think twice before using Irish slang in the future. As a matter of fact, I’ve already begun. You see, I was jast going to respond to this letter by saying our Irish proofreader was drunk at the time and that’s why she didn’t catch the mispunctuated “Paddy’s” reference on the cover. But I didn’t. So there. —Amanda Aikman, Managing Editor In (mis Issue May 11/2005 www.theotherpress.ca | 5