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Taking the Mickey

Posted by Lewis on November 18, 2004

In Reply to: Great stuff, thankyou Brian posted by art on November 17, 2004

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Some time ago ESC suggested bracketing our country name against our nom de plumes, in order to give others a better idea of our origins. I thought it was a good idea and did it for a while, then got lazy.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : But another good idea that I notice some people such as Smokey, David G and SR do, is place their initials at the end of their comments.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : I know I'm a slow learner and it's taken me a while to register this. But when replying to a long thread, sometimes I reply to comments further up the chain but can't remember who made them. So I have to go keep clicking back to find out. However, when people place their initials at the end of the comments - I can see instantly who made them.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : So maybe this is a good habit for us to get into???

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : I tried it once, but I spelled Pennsylvania wrong so I gave up. But Pennsylvania is too long to type, so I won't try it again, but I will try signing my posts. Hmmm. BfS? Nah. Brian. Yeah.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : --Brian.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Isn't the plural of nom de plume noms de plume?

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : TF (obstreperous)

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : I think it discrimnates against nomads.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Camel
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : a.k.a SOTD

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : Haha, didn't mean to discriminate - and thanks for the tip obstreperous. And my apologies - after making this suggestion, I forgot to do it myself. Sheesh - you just can't get good help these days. As for Brian's problem, isn't there state abbreviation for Pennsylvania?

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : Oh and Word Camel what's an SOTD? ...Goddess

: : : : : : : : : : : : : Soup of the day?

: : : : : : : : : : : : Ship of the desert? Do I win a huggle?

: : : : : : : : : : : I think using a country code or some such is a BAD idea. I like to guess at the nationality of the players. Brits and Mickeys use different spelling from those of the yanks, and have different slang and different jokes. They have mostly the same TV shows, more's the pity. As for Brian, who could not know that he's a yank? And Americans from the northeast ought to recognize Shawnee as Pennsylvanian, certainly from the U.S. (It's an American Indian word if I'm not mistaken.) Anyway, he once gave it away by admitting to knowledge of the Poconos, preceded by altogether too much knowledge of the New Jersey Turnpike, a little knowledge of which goes a long way. SS

: : : : : : : : : : Fair point Smokey. Although I have no idea what a Mickey is - please enlighten me (or will I regret it?) Actually, the country ID was secondary, and historical, it was the signoff at the end of a response - as you do. That was more important to me, to reduce the need for me to scroll back to find out who said what.

: : : : : : : : : : We spell everything the pommie way (although TV is changing that), so does that mean we're Mickey's? ...GODDESS

: : : : : : : : The modern post office abbreviation for Pennsylvania is PA. Before that there were a variety of abbreviations, all of which were acceptable, to my knowledge. Pa. Penn. Pe. I think "Pe." was the rarest. Smokey is right of course, in saying that most people would recognize Shawnee as being in the U.S. and I'll concede that I come across as Northeastern, which means Pennsylvania since the other Shawnees are distributed throughout the Midwest, following the diaspora I would imagine.

: : : : : : : : And I'd guess Mickey's are non-diaspora Irish.

: : : : : : : : --Brian.

: : : : : : : Aaah, then TF needs to expand his list. He might find that many of the countries originally colonised in one form or another by the English, still favour the English spelling as does Australia, at least until TV wins over and converts us all to US speak (except me - I'm a traditionalist who wants to stick with the stuff I grew up with - maybe I'm really just a stick in the mud).

: : : : : : : But Brian, please help with with this non-diaspora. Diaspora means dispersed doesn't it, so by 'non' diaspora do you mean the Irish who are still living in Ireland?

: : : : : : "Ship of the Desert" is correct. Shae wins accolades, a small golden statue and yes, a huggle. :) But only if I can visit Shannon to deliver it.

: : : : : : *TF, for his culinary flair and originality, wins the la soupe dujour avec les Dégonfler pita.

: : : : : I thought Mick sounded too disdainful, not to say insulting, so I changed it to Mickey. Bad move. SS

: : : : Oh well, do the Irish really care? Meanwhile, when I grew up a 'Mick' was a derogatory term specifically for an Irish Catholic. My mother was and still is, chronically prejudiced against Catholics. It's so stupid, I like to taunt her about it as a result.

: : : : I remember some of my best school buddies were Catholics, and if they ever did anything wrong or made a mistake - or just came from a big family, or even had pierced ears - mum would curl up her lip and say, "well what do you expect from a Mick". Even as a kid I thought she was being stupid, so fortunately she never managed to colour my opinions.

: : : : So is the term 'Mick' a generic reference to the Irish, or only the Catholic Irish (as it was where I grew up)? I don't need to ask whether it's considered derogatory over there too, because Smokey wouldn't have tried to disguise it if it wasn't.

: : : Funny, I never thought about it before. I'd always assumed "Mick" referred to all Irish because when I would hear the term as a child, I was unaware of the differences between Ulster and the rest of Ireland. However, now that I think about it, it probably means just Catholics. And to illustrate that prejudice goes both ways, I've come to know that there are people on my father's side of the family who don't consider the Scots-Irish (or is it Scotch-Irish?), that is, the Protestants, to be really Irish. I remember my Aunt Eleanor rolling her eyes when she said something like "Oh, he said he's Irish-- 'Burns'". And then there was the time my father was drafted by the U.S. Army in 1943. My grandfather was so distraught that he was going "to fight for the Goddamned English", that he went out and got drunk. I mean, how unpatriotic! Family history doesn't record whether he was relieved that my father first served in British India rather than Europe, but I suspect he wasn't.

: : : Almost forgot: The "non-diaspora" folks I was referring to are indeed the Irish who never emigrated. There are lots of diasporas, but only one Diaspora capitalized. That's the Diaspora of Jews living outside Israel and Palestine.

: : : --Brian.

: There is an additional confusion in that people in the US move great distances and move often. I grew up and was educated by people in Missouri and Kansas who came from eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. My pronunciation and use of slang and phrases and idioms sometimes reflect this. But, I haven't been there for half a century so a lot of my language is melting pot stuff from Arizona and Las Vegas.

Let us not unnecessarily involve religious prejudice - whilst the Republic is predominently Catholic (at least nominally), it is not exclusively so, nor is Ulster only Protestant. They are both mixed communities - my parents are surrounded by Irish Catholic neighbours - but they live in the South of England - and it is NOT in a ghetto.

it is shameful that at the time of the potato famine, the government of the day neglected such a huge land area for which it was responsible -
in those circumstances, no wonder the population of that region demanded autonomy - with power comes responsibility and if the government is not prepared to honour its responsibility, it should not have the power. thus republicanism was not religion, but temporal power. had they still had High Kings, they might have demanded Monarchy...

I grew up with 'Mick' or 'Paddy' just meaning 'Irishman' - I suppose that if I had thought about it, I might have thought Paddy=Patrick=Patron Saint of Ireland - probably Irish Catholic, but in fact, just recognised a lot of Irish men are "Patrick"s.

I don't even know if 'taking the Mick' comes from the usage.

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