I've found at least two books written while Elsie was popular -- Emily of New Moon, and Main Street -- in which a character uses Elsie as an example of horrible literature. In Emily of New Moon, her teacher finds out she's been reading some novels or something, and he tells her that, if she's going to rot her mind with stuff like that, then she might as well just go read Elsie. In Main Street, the main character is considering becoming a librarian, and thinks about how she'd get to introduce people to the whole world of knowledge they can find in books, but then decides that, no, the reality of being a librarian is probably just dealing with kids looking for the latest Elsie book.

I wonder how that compares to the attitude today towards twilight books. Is today mellower or not?

Another data point. Many families who describe themselves as "Scotch-Irish" were of an entirely Irish background. Irish was something to be ashamed of Scottish not, or at least less so. Of course after the claim is passed down for a few generations, the family believes it. (Mind you, there were actual Scotch-Irish, but ratio of claimed to actual was very high.)

My family is Scotch-Irish on my dad's side (the McCabes were the former, and the Kincaids the latter). Of course, enough generations of residence have thoroughly Americanized everyone; my mom's whitebread English immigrant family has more ties to Scottish culture via their church.

My Scotch-Irish ancestors are (as far as I can tell) truly so - in many cases I can document the remove from Scotland to Ireland, and/or they fought on the British side in the Battle of the Boyne, or went to Trinity College (which didn't accept Catholics).

Happy Leap Day! I feel like this needs to be celebrated somehow, but I have no idea what do to.

The Scotch-Irish conversation is reminding me of something that happened in elementary school that made me laugh. When it was St. Patricks Day, we would all be Irish for a day, and the teacher would make Shamrocks with or names on them, put with the prefix O' or Mc in front of it. So mine would say "Sophia O'Brooks". Or, since we were a predominately Italian town, more like "Angelo O'Sanguedolce" But there were a few kids who already had the prefix.

And instead f leaving it, the teacher put the other prefix in frnt f it-- so "Susie O'McGill" r what have you. It was s silly that it has stuck with me all these years!

Happy Leap Day! I feel like this needs to be celebrated somehow, but I have no idea what do to.

This video seems appropriate for Leap Day. [link]

And instead f leaving it, the teacher put the other prefix in frnt f it-- so "Susie O'McGill" r what have you.

What about, say, O'Neill? Mc'O'Neill?

My Catholic Irish family did OK (at least as of the turn of the 20th century), but they were in Catholic New England...

There's a lot of "lace-curtain Irish" vs. "second wave Irish" delineation as well.

Signed, I may have been told I was first generation Scots-Irish as a child. After doing something the Scots side didn't appreciate. I'm fine with fully embracing my inner Celt, though; so what if one side of me doesn't exactly get the joke.

What about, say, O'Neill? Mc'O'Neill?

Yes. It was so weird. Also, do elementary schools spend so much time teaching you about holidays now. I feel like 1st grade was spent learning about every possibly holiday ever.