Swearing, aibu?

[Ozwizard]

Ds is throwing a paddy! He wants to be able to use swearing whilst playing his Xbox. A boy in his Xbox party is having a row with ds and apparently this is how arguments are being played out by swearing at each other!! I am making ds look uncool by not letting him swear back so he looks like he is losing the argument! I do not like swearing and have never brought him up with it. I do not want him doing it, especially as when on Xbox he shouts anyway in the heat of the game! He's 13 and says that I should let him do it because of his age.

[NeedACleverNN]

Are you Irish?

It was probably taught in your curriculum. Not in the British as we probably had our own history to learn

[Topseyt]

Never mentioned in any history lesson I ever had, though our school history curriculum wasn't exactly wide.

[CubicZirconiaBossyBabe]

Well I never heard the term "throwing a Paddy" or "like a Paddy shop" until I visited England.. was rather a shock. We didn't have to have a lesson to know it wasn't cool.

And it's BRITISH history. Your history if you're British. The pale = british rule

[BarbarianMum]

Well I've learned something new tonight. Never really thought about the origins of either phrase (to me "paddy" is rice fields rather than the Irish). Luckily they're not phrases that I use so haven't been walking round inadvertently offending people for years.

[ouryve]

My 12 year old would lecture him on not swearing. At length.

[Topseyt]

I am not Irish.

My Dad's side of the family are from Northern Ireland, but I was born and raised in England and went to school there, with limited contact with our Irish side.

I never heard any of this mentioned, either at home or in school history lessons.

[NeedACleverNN]

I give up.

I said I didn't know and would never have associated them and look there are other people who said the same.

It wasn't that long ago that I left school so it obviously was not taught in most schools

[CubicZirconiaBossyBabe]

I don't think anyone expects history to be taught comprehensively in schools these days with the over emphasis on English and Maths…

.. but to say "we probably had our own history to learn" re. not knowing much about British rule abroad… that was what we were replying to.

[Topseyt]

NeedaCleverNN, some people clearly just want to label those of us who admitted to not knowing the history of these phrases as ignorant arseholes.

[CubicZirconiaBossyBabe]

BarbarianMum is not an ignorant arsehole

BarbarianMum's post about not realising the problems before was fine.

Acknowleged the problem, moves forward having learnt why the phrase is a problem. Dosen't get arsey about how perfectly fine it is to be ignorant to racial slurs.

[CubicZirconiaBossyBabe]

Other fine responses to learning something you thought was fine is largely offensive: "oh my goodness, I never knew, I won't use it from now on"

arguing the toss about why it's fine to not know and why should you… not so much

[AliceInUnderpants]

I'm Scottish, with a Scottish accent. Would it be offensive for me to use the phrase?

[CubicZirconiaBossyBabe]

Throwing a paddy? yes, still not okay in a scotish accent!

But I think in some contexts Paddy by itself could be okay in familiar circumstances between scotish and irish whose history is similar.

[AliceInUnderpants]

Okay wasnjust wondering as the focus seems to be on the assumption that the posters involved are English

[Topseyt]

Don't be daft, Cubic. I didn't say it was fine. I acknowledged that you learn something new every day and said that they weren't phrases I would have tended to use.

If I have learned something new then how thick would I have to be to start going out and bandying the phrase around?

[CubicZirconiaBossyBabe]

Throwing a Paddy would not be okay in Ireland, said by an Irish person with an Irish accent.

Paddy by iteslf has been reclaimed to some extent, but not quite enough for people who don't share the history IYKWIM

[CubicZirconiaBossyBabe]

Some posters have been more defensive about how okay it is to not "think" than others

I didn't always know why "meltdown" wasn't okay to use in place of "tantrum", but once I did I didn't go on the defensive on the SEN topics

[Bringiton2016]

Well I have learnt something new tonight as well. "Having a paddy" comes from my mum and nan to describe children having a tantrum. I will not use this phrase again now I know. I have never made the connection. I don't refer to Irish people as "paddys' so I didn't associate it at all.

I studied the history of Ireland at school and some Irish history at university. I consider myself educated but just never made any connection. Like a pp the term paddy conjures up paddy fields (or children tantruming )

[CubicZirconiaBossyBabe]

Bringiton.. another fine response to not having realised before.

[NeedACleverNN]

No experience with SEN children here either so what's the main difference between tantrum and meltdown?

[CubicZirconiaBossyBabe]

There's loads of memes about the difference. A meltdown is many times harder to cope with for the parent and more traumatic for the child than a tantrum

[Therealyellowwiggle]

It is interesting that for most people "paddy wagon" brings up images of Irish people being taken away in a police van (this is based on my googling of the origin of the phrase alone!) whereas it was the Irish people who were on the outside of the van, as policemen. People's racist stereotypes of Irish people have changed the meaning in their own mind, as of course it must be the "paddies" causing the problem. I suspect being Irish in America is viewed more positively than in UK in general.