Wiffy code: Fidelma Healy Eames says she was pronouncing French word for ’WiFi’
Senator Fidelma Healy Eames has spoken out about the attention her unusual pronounciation of the word 'WiFi' has received over the last few days.
While discussing the country's dependence on freely available internet in her discussion of the proposed Harmful and Malicious Electronic Communications Bill 2015, Healy Eames confused many people by talking about a 'wiffy code'.
Many social media users had a field day, taking joy in her mispronunciation of the commonly used word.
what this #wiffycode thing?
— David McWilliams (@davidmcw) July 3, 2015
Lots of brands jumped on the bandwagon too to promote their own WiFi-related offers, including Aer Lingus and Three Ireland.
Dear Guest, please turn over to reveal #wiffycode pic.twitter.com/mN8rydABCz
— Aer Lingus (@AerLingus) July 3, 2015
Don’t rely on incorrect wiffy codes… Get unlimited 4G with Three today.
— Three Ireland (@ThreeIreland) July 3, 2015
#wiffycode http://t.co/6nnWcvBpBo pic.twitter.com/CWzCOB5Iyy
Now the Senator claims she was merely using the French translation of the word, and social media users chose to ignore her previous use of the English version of the word.
"I spoke about the dependence on 'Wifi' (English pronunciation) first, before I intentionally used the French pronuciation 'wifee' not expecting it in the least to cause a ripple! Quelle surprise," Healy Eames writes in a statement on her Facebook page titled 'Wifi, wifee, weefee, whatever'.
https://t.co/baBc952WC2 #wifi #wifee #weefee whatever! @sophiasmall @KotoolePR @KeithM @mrs_bopp @oisinbrown
— Dr. Fidelma Healy Eames (@fidelma4Europe) July 4, 2015
"As a nation who travel a lot, I was acknowledging the dependence on and prevalence of wifi, wherever we go," she says. "And that there are different pronunciations for the word 'wifi'."
She provided a link to this pronunciation of the word by a French speaker:
She argues that the backlash from her strange pronunciation proves the country needs the Harmful and Malicious Electronic Communications Bill, which aims to protect people from online abuse and to provide a means of redress for offensive behaviour encountered online.
"Is it not ironic that the point made in the Seanad in relation to the potentially damaging use of electronic communications/social media has been proven by the plethora of keyboard warriors who have jumped on the bandwagon to belittle and to ridicule, while ignoring that I had referred to 'wifi' first?
"How easy it is to selectively edit, to deliberately distort and hurt others in the process."
She believes the media can often promote cyberbullying in reports on events such as this.
"The plethora of media attention today and yesterday shows that it makes a direct contribution to cyber-bullying when not reported accurately. Pathetic really! But how about if that same harmful treatment was directed at a vulnerable person? How isolating would that be?"
Healy Eames says social media users and journalists should turn their attention instead to "more pressing matters".
"There are many more pressing matters that need to be highlighted such as Tunisia, Syria, Greece, in addition to our own serious national issues. Regrettably, this is not what some of our media moguls or keyboard warriors choose to highlight."
Healy Eames has previously made headlines when she claimed that frape is "where you're raped on Facebook".
She also got herself into trouble recently when she posted a tweet saying that a Yes vote in the Marriage Equality Referendum could mean the end of Father's Day and Mother's Day, as is the case in certain states in the US.
Happy Mothers' day all! Hope we can continue to celebrate it after #SSM passed. In some US states Mothers & Father's Day banned #pcgonemad
— Dr. Fidelma Healy Eames (@fidelma4Europe) March 15, 2015
This statement was completely untrue.
