Stranger having a go at me because my name isn't catholic or protestant

[Mister Six]

You immediately assumed he'd gone trotting off down the corridor squealing to his boss "Daddy daddy new man did bad thing" (in which case your criticism would be reasonably valid)

I think that would have been a perfectly reasonable response on SGN's part (well, maybe not the wording...). Yeah it's matey's first day, but if his first interaction with a colleague is to bring up sectarianism and get agitated by their lack of religious conviction, that's something that the boss should probably have a word with him about. It's not like made a slightly off-colour joke or shared too much about his colonoscopy or something.

SGN was able to shrug it off, more or less, but what if this bloke did the same thing to someone who is more anxious and less sure of themselves? What if he caught someone alone and went through the same motions? He's liable to make people feel unsafe in the workplace, whatever his intentions may have been, and it's better for everyone for that behaviour to be nipped in the bud.

[Sebastian Cobb]

What if he did it to Rangers Tam and he stuck the heid on him.

[TheBrownBottle]

Sooooo...what does he call her?

Has to be Dave, shurely?

On the OP - bizarre folk etymology re the spelling difference.  Some bloke has made that up in a pub in Glasgow and it's spread.  'Steven' as a variant spelling has fuck all to do with Protestantism or Catholicism.  Christ, the things people will find to justify their bullshit.

Though anyone called 'Marc' is a cunt.  Fucking fancy-pants Frenchy spellings.  Heathens.

[kalowski]

Yes, but then my name is Jon Venables.

This just made me laugh out loud whilst in the bathroom. I told my wife I was masturbating.

[gilbertharding]

Though anyone called 'Marc' is a cunt.  Fucking fancy-pants Frenchy spellings.  Heathens.

According to the statistics, Marc, with a C broke into the top 100 British boys names at a time roughly coincident with the rise of T Rex (the pop group) and dropped out of the top 100 roughly when Soft Cell (the pop group) became popular.

[TheBrownBottle]

I was born in 1982.  Thank fuck for Marc Almond and my parents' distaste for Synthpop. 

[Non Stop Dancer]

Think Marc might be the name of a much loved poster who died, so might be best to knock this train of thought on the head as it will cause upset. Obviously you weren't to know etc.

[Dex Sawash]

Victim blaming lul

Phictim blaming morelike

[TheBrownBottle]

Think Marc might be the name of a much loved poster who died, so might be best to knock this train of thought on the head as it will cause upset. Obviously you weren't to know etc.

Ah, sorry about that.  Hope others will appreciate it was a daft joke built on the premise of the stupidity of being upset re the spelling of names (and my real name being Mark).

[Shit Good Nose]

This just made me laugh out loud whilst in the bathroom. I told my wife I was masturbating.

And this in turn just made me laugh out loud.  Although I wasn't in the bathroom, nor pretending to masturbate/actually masturbating.

On the OP - bizarre folk etymology re the spelling difference.  Some bloke has made that up in a pub in Glasgow and it's spread.  'Steven' as a variant spelling has fuck all to do with Protestantism or Catholicism.  Christ, the things people will find to justify their bullshit.

Though anyone called 'Marc' is a cunt.  Fucking fancy-pants Frenchy spellings.  Heathens.

St Stephen is venerated by both catholic and protestant (/C of E) churches (without any change to the spelling), and I always thought SteVen was just an American variant, until I went up to Glasgow for the first time.  I'm not sure that it is just something that's sprouted up in a weegie (or Irish) pub as I've come across FAR too much discussion about it over the years.  Thing is, though, if you try to do any research about it on the net, there are just as many that vouch for the historical religious differences as there are that say it's just a different spelling that has evolved in modern times, like lots of words where spellings have changed over time just because of the way language naturally evolves.  I don't really care either way and never have done, but there are clearly people out there who do.  For some reason.

RE Marc - yes, the dear departed Serge of course, but also it's a shortening of Marcus, which is a VERY old Italian name (although you don't see the shortened Marc much in Italy - that is more of an English, and, as you said, French variant).

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Or the lesser known Marcolomew

[Non Stop Dancer]

Ah, sorry about that.  Hope others will appreciate it was a daft joke built on the premise of the stupidity of being upset re the spelling of names (and my real name being Mark).

Yeah, it was obviously not to be taken seriously and no need to feel bad about it. Just thought I'd nip it in the bud!

[Shit Good Nose]

CHAPTER 2 - The Reckoning

He came in this morning and said general "hello"s to everyone on the way to his desk.  I was on the phone at the time.


TO BE CONTINUED...

[Shit Good Nose]

CHAPTER 3 - Second Manassas

He's gone to a meeting by the sound of things, and I'll be leaving soon.


I don't think this story will have any further legs.


CLIFFHANGER

[Shit Good Nose]

Had a CONVERSATION with him this morning in the kitchen.

He asked me if I was enjoying the six nations rugby, to which I had to respond that I have zero interest in or knowledge of sport, to the point where even in sporting office sweepstakes I rely on someone else to tell me if I've won or not. 

Turns out we're both lapsed commuting cyclists (/cunts) due to different office locations making it impractical.  So we have that in common.

I had my guard up and kept the conversation very vanilla from my side, but nothing further was mentioned about getting any orange men to parade past my front door.


I think that's the end of this story.  Apologies to those who were expecting and hoping for Mass Orgy thread 2.

[EOLAN]

He is in to rugger is he?

If it was 10 months ago; I would have liked his view of the Leinster (in Ireland) rugby coach saying before a final against Glasgow in Glasgow stating that he would expect a lot of support from the Catholics in Glasgow because some of the rugby players are Rangers fans. It didn't sound that complicated at the time anyway. Plus I think Celtic fans were more focused on their own cup final that day. 

I did like how anyone who used sponsor Celtic/Rangers had to sponsor both to try to avoid a massive boycott from the other set of supporters. 

[Shit Good Nose]

Yeah, I'm not gonna go and ask him that if you don't mind, albeit primarily because of my own lack of interest and knowledge - it'll be some heated debate and I won't understand why.


I didn't think rugby was particularly popular in Glasgow - always football on in the pubs, and all the regalia in and around the Barras is football related.

[Pingers]

I think that's the end of this story.  Apologies to those who were expecting and hoping for Mass Orgy thread 2.

Speaking of which, I went to Center Parcs for the first time a while back. Had a very nice time, but couldn't quite banish the image of paunchy middle aged swingers going at it over the kitchen counter. I won't lie, it took the shine off ever so slightly.

[Shit Good Nose]

Speaking of which, I went to Center Parcs for the first time a while back. Had a very nice time, but couldn't quite banish the image of paunchy middle aged swingers going at it over the kitchen counter. I won't lie, it took the shine off ever so slightly.

Sorry about that.

I've been assured that they thoroughly clean up after themselves.  But, y'know, once a plate gets jizz and/or faecal matter on it, it's always got jizz and/or faecal matter on it (by the time I've finished with it, etc).

[kngen]

I didn't think rugby was particularly popular in Glasgow - always football on in the pubs, and all the regalia in and around the Barras is football related.

It's not - to give a sense of imbalance in interest, Glasgow's top rugby team (the Presbyterians? I don't fucking know) play their home games at high school pitch where Rangers used to train during the week. Yet the BBC and the broadsheets are filled with ex-public schoolboys who honestly believe rugby coverage is a god-given right for them and their lawyer pals. Big in Edinburgh and the Borders (it being, as the cliche goes, the preserve of lawyers and farmers), but no-one else gives a fuck.

[jamiefairlie]

It's not - to give a sense of imbalance in interest, Glasgow's top rugby team (the Presbyterians? I don't fucking know) play their home games at high school pitch where Rangers used to train during the week. Yet the BBC and the broadsheets are filled with ex-public schoolboys who honestly believe rugby coverage is a god-given right for them and their lawyer pals. Big in Edinburgh and the Borders (it being, as the cliche goes, the preserve of lawyers and farmers), but no-one else gives a fuck.

Rugby is the sport of the establishment in Scotland and they are predominately Church of Scotland or other miserable John Knox descendants, so in general, rugby types tend to Tories/Unionists.

[Tony Tony Tony]

This thread calls to mind that in my family it was customary to name the eldest male child after the father, leading to a long line of Gerald's. Happily for me my mother objected to this so I escaped. I have often pondered that had I been called Gerald I would have been destined to end up as a Tory MP disgraced in some sex scandal. 

[Shit Good Nose]

This thread calls to mind that in my family it was customary to name the eldest male child after the father, leading to a long line of Gerald's. Happily for me my mother objected to this so I escaped. I have often pondered that had I been called Gerald I would have been destined to end up as a Tory MP disgraced in some sex scandal.

Whereas now you're just a normal bloke called Tony disgraced in some sex scandal.  Small column on page 5 as opposed to front page - soz :(

[kngen]

Rugby is the sport of the establishment in Scotland and they are predominately Church of Scotland or other miserable John Knox descendants, so in general, rugby types tend to Tories/Unionists.

And farmers.

[jamiefairlie]

And farmers.

.

Yeah and fishermen for some weird reason.

[Shit Good Nose]

Neil's gonna be annoyed at the necroposting, but this doesn't deserve a new thread.

So this guy was shown the door at the end of last summer (I didn't find out about it until the other day) - the rumour is that he'd been fudging the procurement system to award sub-£500 contracting jobs to one particular local company (which a Companies House search apparently suggested was a family member) we've never had on our books, during the first lockdown.  I have no evidence of that, but did hear it from several (reliable) sources, completely independent of each other.  I'd not seen him since our exchange in February last year.

The one thing I've learnt is that I didn't realise it was that easy to do those shenanigans on our procurement system (suspect the process has been changed now, IF the rumours are true).

[Kankurette]

I've told the story on here before - mum wanted to call me Wayne which, thankfully (apologies to any Waynes), my dad wasn't having and after they couldn't agree on a name dad looked at the birthdays in the day's newspaper.  It was between Steve (after Steve McQueen) or Harry (after Harry Houdini).  Harry wasn't fashionable at the time, so Steve/Steven it was.

Met a new chap at work today who isn't in my department or team but is working in the same office.  He's a Stephen from somewhere in Ireland, and we did the whole "hey, same name" thing.  Anyway, he asked me if I was a catholic StePHen or a protestant SteVen.  I said neither and said I was just named after the actor, explaining the whole affair.  Fella proudly proclaimed his was the "proper" catholic way to which I said I didn't know anything about that and neither myself nor my parents are/were religious so it wasn't a consideration, literally just named after Steve McQueen.  Fella then quizzically suggested that it must be protestant because it was the protestant spelling, and I said no - I hadn't been christened and neither had my parents and the only time either one of them went to church was when they got married.  He started getting visibly annoyed then and went on about the history of the spellings and how wars had been fought over it in the history of the celts and said I needed to accept that I was a protestant and "from now on we're at war, ho-ho-ho-ho-ho".  I just said okay and smiled and he moved onto the next person.

Later checked with my manager and others that that was a genuinely odd encounter and one that wasn't aggravated by me.  They all agreed.

I shall be avoiding this chap as much as I can so as not to endure any further passive-aggressive chumminess with someone who has an unusual issue.


Anyone ever got angry with you because of your name?

What happens if you're a Jew called Steve?

[Shit Good Nose]

What happens if you're a Jew called Steve?

Make a shark and a alien films

[Catalogue Trousers]

And be very lairy if anyone asks you to make a crystal skulls films

Welcome back, SGN!

[Shit Good Nose]

Welcome back, SGN!

Thank you tall guy (WINK).