"Irish Pennants" - some thoughts on being offended

Waud, Alfred R. (Alfred Rudolph), 1828-1891, artist / Public domain

My uncle was a US Marine.  Like many Marines, he came out of his service with a fanatical sense of order and cleanliness.  Boy, do they ever bang that into their heads in the Corps!  Anyway, from him I learned the term "Irish pennant"--a stray thread or scrap of fabric in his uniform.  The term comes from the British navy, first recorded use in 1829 to refer to any untidy or loose end of rope, or out-of-place line.  Its use in the US Marines for untidy threads on a uniform developed later. 

My question today is whether the term is offensive.  Its history was almost certainly derogatory: a pennant is a flag; to say that an untidy mess is an Irish flag is to suggest the Irish are untidy messes.  An obvious dig.  But an offensive origin story doesn't make something offensive forever.

For a case study, let's look at the word "Welsh".  Its etymology, according to World Wide Words, is "an Old English word meaning 'foreigner; slave' and at first was applied by the Anglo-Saxons to all the native peoples of Britain".  Rather than call themselves "foreigners" or "slaves", proud Welsh people may choose to use their own language to name themselves: the Cymry people.  But that word isn't widely known; even the most ardent of the Cymry would still have to call themselves Welsh to the wider English-speaking world, or no-one would know what they meant!  However, according to this dictionary (powered by Oxford), the etymology of "Welsh" goes further back than the Anglo Saxon's use of it: their word "Wælisc" for "foreigner; slave" came from the Latin Volcae, the name of a Celtic people.  It might not have meant "slave" originally, and it doesn't mean "slave" now.  So is it offensive because at one point in its history people used it that way? 

Perhaps the word "Welsh" isn't offensive now that the "slave" roots are obscured by time, but the use of it as a verb meaning "to renege on a deal" is offensive, because it implies the Welsh people are dishonest.  And it's interesting that the dictionary I linked to chose to put the offensive verb before the inoffensive noun.  Why should "welshing on a deal" come before "Welsh, the people or language of Wales" in any dictionary? 

"Irish Pennant", on the other hand, is elevated by being verbed!  Beyond simply calling a stray thread on his uniform an "Irish pennant", my uncle would say he was "Irish pennanting" his uniform, meaning "inspecting for loose ends and cutting them off neatly".  In that case, the Irish are now associated with the act of cleaning up and making ship-shape, whereas before they were associated with being untidy.  Funny, that. 

I am always reflective of what makes something offensive so I can avoid it.  Alas, offensiveness isn't some kind of Y/N toggle or trait, where I can just think "Oh, X is offensive but Y is not".  It's situational, fluid.  There are several components: the intent to offend, the taking of offense, and whether others have been offended so before.  The first two are obvious:

1. If I call you a ninnyhammer, in jest, and you laugh, there's no offense. 
2. If I call you a fopdoodle, in jest, and you get hurt, then there was an accidental offense, and I should apologize. 
3. If I call you a mumpsimus in earnest, and you laugh, there was an intended offense, but it bounced back and hit me in the nose. 
4. If I call you a numpty in earnest, and you get hurt, there was a successful offense. 

But what about "whether others have been offended so before"?  That's trickier, isn't it?  My family ancestry is French Canadian, and my parents always said we were Canucks.  Imagine my surprise to find online that some consider "Canuck" a slur!  Is it offensive just because some people sometimes mean it or take it that way?

. . . though even words like “juju-flop,” “swut,” and “turlingdrome” are now perfectly acceptable in common usage, there is one word that is still beyond the pale. The concept it embodies is so revolting that the publication or broadcast of the word is utterly forbidden in all parts of the galaxy except one - where they don’t know what it means. That word is “Belgium” and it is only ever used by loose-tongued people like Zaphod Beeblebrox in situations of dire provocation.
-- ’The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, by Douglas Adams.  Radio show transcript.

I suspect that those who think "Canuck" is a slur think so for the same reason that some people think "sissy" is a slur: it says more about their disrespect for the referenced group than the word itself.  If you think it's offensive to call a man a woman, it's because you think being a woman is lesser, contemptible.  If you think a regional/ethnic nickname is a slur (despite the fact that the people of that region/ethnicity use it for themselves), it's because you think that group is lesser, contemptible.  In that case it's you intending to offend, but whether the target takes offense is entirely up to them!  Let's say someone tries to put me down by saying I run or throw like a girl (which I totally do): should I take offense just that person wants me to?  Or, if someone says, without meaning to offend, that I'm girly (which I totally am), should I take offense where none was meant, just because "girly" has been used as an insult in the past?  I think not.  That would be a waste of energy, and the only people who waste energy taking unnecessary offense are narcissists, high on their own supply.  Reasonable people understand that a word alone is not offensive. 

"And since then, O Kings and Ladies, I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound.  And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me, Beloved, me who am but as a dog--"
"Eh?  What's that?" said one of the Dogs. 
"Sir," said Emeth.  "It is but a fashion of speech which we have in Calormen."
"Well, I can't say it's one I like very much," said the Dog. 
"He doesn't mean any harm," said an older Dog.  "After all, we call our puppies, Boys, when they don't behave properly!"
"So do we," said the first Dog.  "Or girls." 
"S-s-sh!" said the Old Dog.  "That's not a nice word to use.  Remember where you are!" 
The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis

Another example from my own life: I once told the man I was dating that I was from "French stock".  He got a little upset and said it was racist to say "stock" because it suggested people were animals (livestock) and referenced the selective breeding of slaves in American history.  I had innocently thought it was a soup metaphor: as ingredients are blended in a stock and become integral to the soup that comes from it, so people's ancestors make the people!  Both uses of the word stock are acceptable definitions.  I'm still unsure whether "stock" is offensive in the context of lineage, or whether he was just sensitive to it. 

Back to Irish pennants... the English sailors who first called untidy ropes "Irish pennants" did so because they thought the Irish were contemptible, lesser.  They intended to offend, or at least intended to use their language to reinforce their ascendancy over a people they didn't respect.  But so far as I can see, no-one currently means to slur the Irish when they use this nautical lingo.  If anything, they simply mean to signal their membership in a group: seamen.  The next question is whether Irish people are hurt by the term.  That I don't know.  I couldn't find anything online to say yea or nay.  The lack of outcry against the term makes me think Irish people either don't know or don't care! 

At any rate, I am neither a seaman nor Irish, so I suppose when I am ironing and find a stray thread that needs to be clipped off my clothing, I ought to just call it something else.  How about "straggle-end"?  "Tail"?  "whisker"? 

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WORKS CITED

Adams, Douglas.  "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Fit the Tenth).  BBC Radio 4: 23rd January 1980.  Transcribed by Clive Banks, The Science Fiction and Telefantasy Databanks: https://www.clivebanks.co.uk/THHGTTG/THHGTTGradio10.htm.  Accessed 1 April, 2020. 

"Balderdash and Flummery."  World Wide Words, Michael Quinion, http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/welsh.htm.  Accessed 29 Mar. 2020.

"Canuck."  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canuck.  Accessed 1 April, 2020. 

“Irish pennant.”  Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Irish%20pennant.  Accessed 29 Mar. 2020.

Lewis, C. S.  The Last Battle.  The Bodley Head, 1956. 

"The History of the Term "Irish Pennant."  British Militaria Forums, Tapatalk Inc, https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/britishmilitariaforums/the-history-of-the-term-irish-pennant-t8917.html.  Accessed 29 Mar. 2020.

"Welsh."  Lexico Dictionary, Powered by Oxford, https://www.lexico.com/definition/welsh.  Accessed 29 Mar. 2020. 

Zorn, Eric.  "Is 'Canuck' an Ethnic Slur?"  Change of Subject (Op-Ed Column), Chicago Tribune: Sunday, May 02, 2010.  https://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2010/05/is-canuck-an-ethnic-slur.html.  Accessed 29 Mar. 2020.