Talk:Para Handy

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TV series[edit]

If someone wants to add an episode guide to the TV series, details can be found of some on the BBC website --jmb 23:08, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Para[edit]

As his forename is Peter, why is his nickname Para if this is the Gaelic equivalent of Paddy, i.e. Patrick? Mutt Lunker (talk) 21:52, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because Pàdraig is used in Scottish Gaelic as an equivalent both for Patrick and Peter - see eg here, p 715 (the page unluckily restricted in Google Books) or here - and Para is shortened from Pàdraig. --Duncan MacCall (talk) 18:46, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or more accurately, Patrick is an Anglicisation of Pàdraig. Pàdraig is derived from Peadar, the Gaelicisation of the Greek Petros or its Latin equivalent Petrus. The "-aig" in Pàdraig was originally equivalent to the "-ie" or "-y" in something like "Jamie", "Billy" etc. It's probably only because of St Patrick that the name Pàdraig became accepted as a "proper" name rather than a variant form (consider that only a couple of generations ago, birth certificates would all have said "Terence" rather than "Terry", "Patricia" rather than "Patsie" or "Joseph" rather than "Joe", whereas these days the colloquial form is accepted).Prof Wrong (talk) 20:38, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of course Saint Patrick was British, or at least of the Romano-British culture – as Para would have it, "wan o Brutain's hardy sons". So presumably the name was originally either Latin or perhaps more probably a Brittonic (early old Welsh) version of Petrus. Perhaps it gained something in translation into Irish language. . . dave souza, talk 21:06, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cluthas[edit]

Cluthas were not chain ferries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.105.108.139 (talk) 21:57, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, thanks! We should really have a Clutha ferry article. . dave souza, talk 08:53, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

High Jinks or Tall Tales?[edit]

My reading of the Para Handy stories was that they were as much about the writer's gullibility as the characters themselves -- ie that the reporter was taking as fact the "tall tales" of a stereotypical seaman.... Prof Wrong (talk) 11:36, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Published collections…[edit]

This section is a bit odd, as it makes it seem that the 1992 collection is the first, even though it then names the separate volumes of stories, which were in themselves collections. Does anyone have the information on how the stories were first collected and sold, and when they came together into the larger collections we have today? My first contact was a volume of my dad’s, which had the Para Handy tales, Erchie and Jimmy Swann; I know that more up-to-date volumes have brought together the original collections with tales which did not get anthologized, but I have neither my original book, nor the new collections to hand to add information. Jock123 (talk) 21:36, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]