Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2015 August 24

= August 24 =

P. Stands For Paddy
I just heard the Irish standard "P. Stands For Paddy" (Johnny is the fairest man), which has as the chorus of "P stands for Paddy, I suppose, J for my love, John; W stands for false Willie, oh but Johnny is the fairest man". Normally with "X stands for Y", the letters are coming from another word or have some other meaning, for example in the song L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole. Is there any additional meaning to P-J-W? Or is this stemming from a Celtic/English mistranslation issue? -- 160.129.138.186 (talk) 15:49, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Interesting question - a thorough search of Google has failed to shed any light on the matter. I'm not sure how many Irish folk songs have actually been translated from Gaelic texts as English has been widely spoken there for centuries. Even if it is the case, John is usually rendered as Seán or Seaghán and William as Liam or Uilliam in Gaelic, thus giving you some different initials to puzzle over. Alansplodge (talk) 21:05, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * There is a discussion on the point here, which seems to conclude that it simply refers to a young woman choosing between suitors, and the names themselves have no special significance. Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:31, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Many old forms of divination involved looking for patterns (such as your future partner's initials) in randomly formed materials (blobs of wax or lead, or dregs of tea leaves) or simply pulling them out of a bowl - see 1, 2, 3. It's possible that this woman is scrying and coming up with predictions for various possible lovers. Smurrayinchester 10:29, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Wow, those are some great -mancy words I never knew! Anthracomancy isn't mentioned in divination, but cleromancy and some others are. Maybe we need a List of mancies or similar? SemanticMantis (talk) 23:42, 27 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Category:Divination has many of them, plus other stuff besides as well also too. Wiktionary -mancy contains a link to "English words suffixed with -mancy".  I obtained these links through the obscure arcane esoteric occult art known as googlomancy.  :)  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:09, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Anyone able to identify this song??
The criteria is:


 * 1) Performed before 2005
 * 2) Sung by a woman
 * 3) Contains in the lyrics "And I..." with the word I being sung on 3 distinct notes in ascending order by pitch.

Georgia guy (talk) 17:04, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Wow, that's not much to go on. Any genre info - dance, pop, rock, folk, etc? Can you tell us anything about the instrumentation - e.g. was there a guitar, piano, synth etc? Where did you hear it? Can you hum or sing the bit you remember? Sometimes sharing a few hummed notes can get you a successful ID that would have been impossible otherwise. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:40, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Anyway, one song that may fit your description is I_Will_Always_Love_You. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:42, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that was my first thought: the Whitney Houston version of "I Will Always Love You". Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:39, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Played to death (literally) on shows like Entertainment Tonight, anytime her name comes up. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:33, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course, it doesn't quite meet the description: the three notes that "I" is sung on are not in ascending order. Still, it was the one I thought of too. --65.94.50.17 (talk) 06:21, 25 August 2015 (UTC)