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According to Irish legend, Saint Patrick wasn’t originally called Patrick. His birth name was Maewyn Succat, but he changed his name to Patricius after becoming a priest. And also because no one could pronounce his name.
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Corned beef and cabbage, a traditional Saint Patrick’s Day staple, doesn’t have anything to do with the grain corn. Instead, it’s a nod to the large grains of salt that were historically used to cure meats, which were also known as “corns.” The corns on your toes don’t have anything to do with corn either.
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His color was “Saint Patrick’s blue,” a light shade. The color green only became associated with the big day after it was linked to the Irish independence movement in the late 18th century.
MY-win SUK-kat. How is that hard, especially for people from Ireland?
To expand on this, originally in English, the word “corn” was used in much the same way we use “kernel” today. It was just a round, hard lump of something. Which is why corns on the feet are called that. Any seed or grain would have been called a corn. Similarly, “apple” originally just meant any kind of tree fruit which is why English calls them pineapples when literally everyone else calls them some variation of Ananas. The first English to see a pineapple thought they looked like pine cones, so they called them “Pine Fruit” which is what pineapple would have meant, basically. Everything in the water used to be a “fish”, too. English used to be very generic when labeling things…
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