Wednesday is St. Patrick's Day. Sometimes it's abbreviated St. Patty's Day, and sometimes it's written St. Paddy's Day. Which is correct?
It depends on how Irish you are. Patty, of course, is a nickname for Patrick. Paddy stands for Padraig, the Gaelic form of Patrick. So both can be seen as proper nicknames for St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.. 
In some other cases, especially when it's used to refer to Irishmen as a whole, Paddy is considered offensive. One of the debatable instances is paddy wagon, an American term from the early 20th century for a small, enclosed truck used to transport police prisoners.
The negative view holds that the term derived from a reputedly large number of Irishmen routinely arrested back then. Another camp maintains that it refers to the large number of Irish who became American policemen, according to Rise Up and other sources.
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