Is “Murphy’s Law” A Slur Against the Irish?

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there.

This is Maureen O’Boyle calling from Charlotte, North Carolina.

How are you, Martha?

I am doing well, Maureen, from Charlotte?

Yes.

Years ago, like way, way back in the 90s, I was asked to co-host the St. Patrick’s Day parade for NBC.

Like the big one? The national one?

Whoa. Really?

Yeah. Wow.

With a name like Maureen O’Boyle, I am Irish.

A little bit.

Okay. Sounds a little Irish.

So I was thrilled. And we have run throughs, which are where you meet with the foundations that support the parade.

And you go through the many different pipes and drum bands that you’re going to need to pronounce.

And you need to get the proper Irish pronunciations and so forth.

And at the end, one of the members of the Order of Hibernians said, a reminder, the most important thing to not say is Murphy’s Law, where anything can go wrong, it will.

And we happened to have rain and snow that day.

So he wanted to make sure nobody said that.

Right. And he said it’s a racist statement against Irish people.

Well, you know, I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus.

I just took it for exactly what he meant.

And I’m kind of curious, is that really the origin of Murphy’s Law?

Wow. Layers upon layers. The full onion here, Maureen.

It is. I can get why somebody might not want that said on a big broadcast.

I can get that because even let’s just before we answer your question, let’s just look at it either way.

If it wasn’t a slander against the Irish, some people might think it was anyway.

Because not everyone’s going to know its story, and you’re not going to sit there on the air and explain its history.

And if it was a slander against the Irish, you wouldn’t want to say it.

No. So either way, you shouldn’t say it.

Correct. I never have been one to say it, just so you know.

Yeah, yeah. Because, like, there’s a certain kind of person who will say it because they know if it’s not a slander, they just want to have the argument, you know.

They just want somebody to call them on it so they can self-righteously say, well, it’s not really a slander because Murphy wasn’t named after an Irishman, you know.

And that’s not really what life is about.

You don’t really want to say a thing just so you can be called on it and virtuously explain that you’re in the right.

But the truth is, it was probably named after a real Murphy.

But he was an American.

And he wasn’t an Irishman.

And although his heritage was probably Irish, it wasn’t because he was a bumbling, incompetent fool.

You know, it wasn’t because he was being blamed because of his Irishness.

It isn’t a slander against an entire nation of people or an entire heritage.

He worked for the Air Force on rockets.

And there was a kind of a tradition that in the testing that they were doing that it seemed like throughout their testing, things would just typically go wrong.

And the line was, if there is any way of doing it wrong, he will do it wrong.

Now, the idea, the concept underlying Murphy’s Law is much older than that.

It goes back to at least the 1860s.

And there are other stories and other tales that kind of feed into this.

A lot of them having to do, by the way, with aerospace and testing of rockets and airplanes.

But the term itself, Murphy’s Law, didn’t come out of Irish slander.

Yeah. But again.

Well, it is a terrible phrase, but I was always, I just believed him and I’ve been so curious.

But the thing is, Maureen, like I said, like, if you’re on a national broadcast, why take the chance?

People who don’t know the story might think it anyway.

Yeah, something can go wrong and will go wrong for some people.

Maybe a way to phrase it is somebody might, if somebody can misunderstand, they will misunderstand.

That’s Grant’s law.

Absolutely.

Yeah. And it was a thrill.

And I did it more than one year.

It was probably some of the most fun days of my life, the most beautiful, one of the most beautiful parades in New York.

Well, thank you, guys.

I love your show.

It’s so much fun.

Yeah. Thanks for calling.

Call us again sometime, Maureen.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.