Patsy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In American slang, a patsy is a person taken advantage of, especially one considered relatively naïve. The term is widely regarded as an ethnic slur, in light of the likely theory that it arose in the mid-19th century when East Coast urban centers in the U.S. included a notable abundance of recent migrants from rural Ireland, among whom the nickname "Patsy" (for Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland) was relatively common.
Two main contexts of the general term, at least in fiction, are:
- confidence games, where the patsy in question is the "mark" intended to be deceived and thereby deprived of something of value, and
- frame-ups by a perpetrator of a crime, who manipulates evidence to incriminate and thus scapegoat the patsy, who may be either an innocent party, or a confederate whom the framer regards as expendable. The description as patsies may apply over a wide range of circumstances, from the betrayal being an inherent part of the planned crime concealed from the patsy, to its being a spur-of-the-moment response to an unanticipated problem.
There are other suggested etymologies for “patsy”. The American Heritage Dictionary has it “perhaps from the Italian pazzo, from the Old Italian paccio".
The website Online Etymology Dictionary goes a bit further; and defines it as: “fall guy, victim of a deception," 1903, of unknown origin, possibly an alteration of It. pazzo "madman" … , or south It. dial. paccio "fool." Another theory traces it to Patsy Bolivar, character in an 1880s minstrel skit who was blamed whenever anything went wrong. “Patsy Bolivar” was a character developed by the vaudeville comedian Billy B Van (real name William Webster Vandegrift) in Broadway musical comedies: The Errand Boy [1904] and Patsy in Politics [1907]. Significantly, the early usages of “patsy” are all from the United States, and all use a capital “P” to suggest a proper name.
Online Etymology Dictionary also suggests a link to the Oxford English Dictionary, which explains that Sexton, Cardinal Wolsey’s “domestic fool” was known as “Patch”. The OED quotes Puck, in Midsummer Night’s Dream, describing: A crew of patches, rude mechanicals, That work for bread upon Athenian stalls'' [III.ii.9-10].
The OED's recent revisions link “Patsy” with “Pat” and “Paddy”, the stereotype of the bogtrotter just off the boat. Immediately after defining "paddy" as "Nickname for an Irishman", the OED explains "to do the paddy over" someone as "to bamboozle, humbug", citing Blackwood's Magazine of 1821. All this adds credence to the word having racist connotation. In this context, it may also be significant that the Bolivar was a vessel bringing immigrants from Ireland.
Furthermore, there is a citation [H F Reddall: Fact, Fancy & Fable, 404] from 1889: A party of minstrels in Boston, about twenty years ago, had a performance... When the pedagogue asked in a rage, ‘Who did that?’, the boys would answer, ‘Patsy Bolivar!’... The phrase ... spread beyond the limits of the minstrel performance, and when a scapegoat was alluded to, it was in the name of ‘Patsy Bolivar’ … the one who is always blamed for everything. This sketch, a theatrical cliché, became a Marx Brothers stand-by, all the way from Fun in Hi Skule [1910, where Harpo, significantly, is “Patsy Brannigan”] to Horse Feathers [1932].
Reddell seems to take "patsy" back at least to the 1870s, closer to the peak of Irish migration to the United States. Sure enough, the Chicago Daily Tribune [20 April 1879] reports the fining of “Patsy Bolivar and Frank Carney, vagrants, $100 each”. If the judge and clerks missed the joke, the Los Angeles Times [23 May 1885] didn’t, quoting that “Judge Field is the ‘Patsy Bolivar’ of the California Democracy.”
In the 1947 Film Noir classic "Out Of The Past", Robert Mitchum as Jeff Bailey wonders if he's been set up as "a patsy" in a frame-up.
One of the most memorable users of the word was Lee Harvey Oswald, jailed for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Given little access to the press, after he realizes the true significance of his situation manages to blurt out in a hallway packed with reporters what history would record as the sum total of his defense: "I'm just a patsy".
Although the word's origins are as an ethnic, racial slur, this racist connotation has been largely lost in current usage, with even Irish media using it in its generic sense of a dupe or fool.
