Jacksepticeye’s real name is Seán William McLoughlin

There’s something I noticed a lot with fans of Jacksepticeye. A pet peeve I have.

It’s not something I’d ever point out to the people themselves since it’s really only my problem & not worth anything in the grand scheme of things. But it still really annoys me so I’m writing this here.

 

Jack himself has said he doesn’t care if people call him Jack or Seán. He’s been called both when growing up, Jack being the English of Seán and all (well actually it’s the English for John but Jack’s a diminutive form of John so same difference).

I tend to refer to him as Jack mainly because I admire him for providing multiple free entertainment but it’s not like he’s my friend. It doesn’t matter how much of himself he puts online, it’s not like I know him. I prefer talking about him using his, I guess, stage name but that’s just a personal preference. It’s not what annoys me.

 

This came to a head in my mind when I saw someone reply to a comment on one of his videos trying to correct another fan. The 1st person called him Shawn, understandable if you only ever hear him say his name not seen it written down, & the other person said it was spelled Sean.

WRONG!

If you are going to correct someone’s spelling at least get it right.

 

á =/= a

 

My dyslexic ass did not suffer through 12 years & I don’t know how many hours of remedial lessons & tutors learning Irish to not get reflexively angry when people get this wrong. Not when it was drummed so hard into my head. If I had to suffer this you do to.

 

The fada changes the sound of the letter for a start. It’s what makes it have that aww sound. It also changes the meaning of the word.

To use an example from one of my Irish tutors, the fada is the difference between man and grass.

 

fyi: The Irish word “fear” (pronounced like far as in to go far) means “man” but the Irish word “féar” (pronounced more like fear as in to be afraid) means grass

 

I mean I get why, after all most people haven’t had to learn Irish. It’s just general ignorance that they don’t treat it like another language since the name sounds so much like something in English. They forget that it is a different language. There is a reason why people tend to have so much trouble with trying to pronounce traditional Irish names. (one of the reasons being that the English lettering system was never actually designed for the Irish language so of course the rules don’t make sense on the outside) but that’s a whole different topic about English colonization & I really couldn’t do it as much justice in explaining it as my sister (who not only went to a Gaelscoil but also taught it a bit).

There also the fact that if you only speak English you might not even know where the ‘á’ symbol is on your keyboard (Ctrl + Alt + a usually in windows btw) or depending on your device might not even have it.

 

Still, I clawed my way to a B in Irish on my leaving Cert & some things leave marks.

 

Just google it, Jack’s wiki page has the correct spelling on it, it’s not that hard.