St. Patrick's Lament
The trend alarmed me, especially if you search the LA Times online--this city's paper of record--and see them mangle the spelling time after time after time. Seriously, someone in the copy writing department needs a tutorial.
The LA Times isn't the only offender, though. Somehow, somewhere, copy editors and ad writers in Los Angeles and beyond started writing "St. Patty's Day" instead of "St. Paddy's Day." It is a spelling that is completely and almost offensively incorrect. So here's a very brief explainer.
"Patty" has ALWAYS been the spelling of the shortened version of the female name "Patricia." "Paddy," however, is the spelling of the shortened version of the male name "Patrick." St. Patrick was a guy, not a gal, so the proper spelling of the shorted version of St. Patrick's Day should be St. Paddy's Day. In other words, no double "T"s.
On this fine Celtic holiday, when anyone can be Irish for a day, it would be wonderful to see the LA Times and anyone else get the gender thing right. Slante!
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