Talk:Paddywhack

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Beckjt.

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Other meanings

Paddywhack may be a ligament, but it is also a word commonly used in many English speaking countries to refer to spanking. Related to this, there are "birthday paddywhacks", which are friendly spankings children are supposed to get on their birthday - one gentle slap on the bum for each year of the anniversary. If anyone can find sources for all this, please add it to the article. :) 76.10.164.121 (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

We don't include more than one meaning in the same article per WP:NOTDIC. Wiktionary is the place for listing meanings. SpinningSpark 11:45, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Slang term for Irishman

Much of this entry needs to be sourced. I actually thought it was a complete hoax, but there do appear to be regional Australian butcher guides that refer to this ligament by this term. But the etymology is doubtful without a better source. The term Paddywhack is well-attested throughout the 19th and early 20th century as a slangterm for an Irishman, obviously related to the slang term Paddy. It seems rather doubtful that this apparently Australian butchery term has a separate etymology from Old English (though stranger things have happened). Without further sources, I might even wonder if the butchery sense of Paddywhack is actually derived from the song and the "dog bone" aspect, rather than having an independent origin. 71.192.14.118 (talk) 14:10, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Edit made

I added some information about the structure of the nuchal ligament. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up. If it is not up to snuff let me know! Thank you!Beckjt (talk) 05:10, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

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Disputed - see Slang Term above

Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Link to secondary sources making the claims here. If there are none, this is probably false. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.159.115.41 (talk) 22:40, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

You refer to the section above (and why are you starting a new section at all?) as evidence there are no sources, but the user there claims to have seen sources and does not think this is a hoax. Admittedly, that user thought this was local slang in Australia. Here are some book sources using the term; [1][2][3][4][5] by no means all Australian butchers. SpinningSpark 12:05, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, there is no dispute that the term paddywhack is *now* used to refer to nuchal ligament as a slang term. What is nit supported by any of these references is the assertions in this article that (a) this is *the* definition of paddywhack and (b) that the term thus derives from the term paxwax which until recently was the only other term for nuchal ligamanet such that it actually appears in dictionaries. The page is presenting folk etymology as fact. 212.159.115.41 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 13:35, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

None of the sources treat the term as slang. The Official Journal of the European Communities and the Australian Meat Board are unlikely to include slang terms, but may include what they consider common names for something that has a scientific Latin name. I think the etymology from paxwax is dubious too, but it does have some morphological similarity (paddywack, paxwax) so it is possible. SpinningSpark 16:08, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

And again, Wikipedia is a tertiary source. It is not good enough for it to be possible - we need to report what is known. If it is just possible then the claim is original research. 212.159.115.41 (talk) 17:16, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

I know it's not good enough to just be possible. I was just pointing out that there may be something to this. Webster's 1913 gives paxywaxy and packwax as alt forms of paxwax which is even closer in form. SpinningSpark 10:25, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Nominated for speedy deletion

This page is nonsense. The term for the nuchal ligament is paxwax (see https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paxwax#:~:text=chiefly%20dialectal,nuchal%20ligament%20of%20a%20quadruped ) and paddywhack is at best a modern brand name or a deliberate play on its similar sounding to paxwax by some pet food purveyors. However, at best that is a slang term and is not the definition of paddywhack. This page is creating an urban legend and is simply not true.

There are *no* useful citations here. A google search shows paddywhack branded dog food but that is all. Citation requests have been here for years and no one has found any citations. It needs to be deleted.

212.159.115.41 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 12:16, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Obviously not looking for sources very competently. See above. SpinningSpark 12:07, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Says you having provided none. Where is the source that says the term paddywhack in the song derives from the pet food? This is an urban legend. The term paddywhack *clearly* predates its use in pet food by a considerable amount. The pet food is derived from the song and not the other way round. If you delete all the unsourced statements in this article you have *nothing left*. 212.159.115.41 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 13:30, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Excuse me, I provided five reliable sources above. I've said nothing at all about the pet food claim, and in fact, I don't believe the article makes the claim you stated. All it says is that dog food of that name exists. I'm still looking into the nursery rhyme, but at least one of the sources I listed refers to it. SpinningSpark 13:46, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

There are still no citations in the article. One of the statements there had a citation request from 2011! I went ahead and removed that. I also removed the most egregious statement that nuchal ligament is referred to in the nursery rhyme. That claim is nonsense. I have left in other unsourced claims but there is little doubt that nuchal ligament gained the slang name of paddywahck because of the line in the rhyme "nick nack paddywhack, give the dog bone" and not the other way round. If the article can say something useful about the term that is not in the nuchal ligament article itself, I will be most surprised. 212.159.115.41 (talk) 14:00, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

It's irrelevant to notability whether or not the article is currently uncited. Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article from WP:NEXIST. Please stop deleting things while I'm trying to source the article, that's just being a pain in the arse. We're supposed to be here to build the encyclopaedia, not pull it to pieces. SpinningSpark 15:34, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, the reason the Kinney blog post is not reliable for the claim that Paddywhack in the rhyme may be derived from nuchal ligament is that (1) he does not state where he got this information and (2) it is entirely plausible and even likely that he came to that conclusion based on this Wikipedia article. This is the problem with wikipedia making speculative claims and presenting them as fact (albeit with a cn beside them). It creates an urban legend and this needs addressing. The fact is we do not *know* where the term paddywhack in the song comes from. To make a claim that it comes from nuchal ligament needs good etymological evidence, and that evidence does not exist. As for deleting claims - I deleted two claims before you began editing and once you started editing I stopped for a couple of hours to allow you a chance to do what you were doing. On the other hand, I do think you should look at your edit summaries here: "drive by lazy tagging", "not looking for sources very competently", and ask whether you are playing the man and not the ball here? AFter all I *am* trying to make Wikipedia better by stopping it from propounding an urban legend and folk etymology. 212.159.115.41 (talk) 17:12, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Kinney does not have an article here, but he meets WP:SPS through being previously published in reliable sources. He's an educator and writer of learning books for children. In my view, none of his article came from Wikipedia (one picture came from Commons). Reading it, it shows every sign of being his own research. SpinningSpark 17:57, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Regardless of who he is, this blog post is a LONG way short of being a suitable WP:RS and this goes to the core of what is wrong with this article and indeed the whole collaborative concept of Wikipedia. You have ignored my concerns and twice reverted speculative and wrong information into this article. This is not good enough. Please read carefully what Kinney writes. Then please read how the article looked until a few days ago. You will note that Kinney seems to say exactly what was said in the article - suspiciously listing the exact things we had and nothing more. So where did Kinney get the information for his blog post? All he says is he did not know where the term came from but since then he has done his research. He does not say where he did the research, but as the only place on the Internet making the claims he makes in his bog post was Wikipedia (and pages citing wikipedia) it seems very likely that Kinney is here quoting THIS article. That *cannot* be reliable. To be a reliable source, the secondary source (Kinney or another) would be citing primary sources to make the case. So - what to do. I suggest you self revert your revert of my edit. The claim is wrong. The OED does not even list nuchal ligament as a meaning of paddywhack and suggests the term in the rhyme comes from what it lists as meaning 3, a blow. Other WP:RS do likewise. The claim here is spurious. 212.159.115.41 (talk) 18:12, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Ok, I've messaged him. Let's see what he's got to say. SpinningSpark 18:38, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

That may help but it does not resolve the current issue which is that you have reverted my edit and placed back information for which there is no consensus based on a source that very clearly is not a WP:RS and does not, in fact, meet WP:RS/SPS despite you saying otherwise in the edit summary. That policy states (inter alia): "self-published sources are largely not acceptable," and "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Kinney is not an established expert - indeed on this matter he says in the source that he did not know where "paddywhack" in the song comes from. Neither has his work on this been published in reliable independent publications. This is unsurprising as the view being expressed is not WP:mainstream. The speculation has no place in this article. 212.159.115.41 (talk) 11:49, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I've had a reply from Kinney and he does not want to defend the material in his article. He also says he will amend it to agree with however the Wikipedia article ends up. That makes Kinney's page a slam-dunk non-RS regardless of what we think of Kinney's status as an expert. If Donald Kinney is still following this page, thank you for the fast reply. SpinningSpark 12:59, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you both for this. 212.159.115.41 (talk) 13:20, 11 October 2021 (UTC)