There's been a lot of speculation over this abbreviation ever year. And the Irish do NOT agree with us.

We can all agree that St. Patrick's Day is an awesome holiday. Green. Irish cheer. Irish culture. Lot of booze. It's a party holiday. Of course we like it.

But there is a hashtag that always pops up this time each year, and that's #PaddyNotPatty.

The Irish are mad that we abbreviate "St. Patrick's Day" into "St. Patty's Day."

A large majority of people around the world agree that "Patty" is an acceptable abbreviation of "Patrick". But the Irish are stubborn and want to set the record straight.

While we do spell it St. Patrick's Day, St. Patrick was Irish. (He's the patron saint of Ireland, of course he's Irish.) But that means that his actual name isn't spelled "Patrick" the Irish form of 'Patrick' is 'Padraig'. Hence: St. Paddy's Day.

But since the catholic church did EVERYTHING in Latin up until the 1960's, the Latin form of 'Patrick' is 'Patricius'. So the English AND Latin forms of 'Patrick' can be abbreviated to "St. Patty".

So there's an argument on both sides for 'St. Patty' and 'St. Paddy'.

I think the Irish are just mad that we make their holiday sound like it's for the patron saint of burgers.


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