# Popes nose - Which Pope?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popes-nose-which-pope/148017
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 11, 2003, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popes-nose-which-pope/148017 "2003-01-11T21:35:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2003, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popes-nose-which-pope/148017/1 "2003-01-11T21:35:06Z")
Searching around the web assured me that it wasn’t just my granny who used the term “The Popes Nose” for the triangular tail you notice on a roast chicken or other poultry.
What I didn’t manage to unearth is where exactly the phrase came from. I saw that protestants call it “The Parsons Nose”, but I suppose that is just an adaptation as there would generally be only one pope at a time, but many parsons.
So, which pope, and why?
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### Author:  [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popes-nose-which-pope/148017/2 "2003-01-11T21:43:13Z")
I don’t think it’s for a particular pope, but a slur against Catholics in general: it’s the ass of the chicken, so bust on the pope when referring to it.
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### Author:  [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2003, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popes-nose-which-pope/148017/3 "2003-01-11T22:02:28Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Enola Straight \*
> \*\*I don’t think it’s for a particular pope, but a slur against Catholics in general: it’s the ass of the chicken, so bust on the pope when referring to it. \*\*
I don’t think that it’s a slur on Catholics, so much. Joyce mentions it in his _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_. The family is gathered together for Christmas dinner and one uncle, begins describing it as a rather tasty cut of the bird, before calling it “the Pope’s nose” and asking if anyone minds if he has it. While Joyce had no fondness for the Catholic Church, I doubt he would have included such a scene (since there were young children present) if the uncle had intended it as a slur. (There’s another scene in the book where an uncle calls the Irish “priest-ridden,” meaning that the priests were to blame for Ireland being under England’s thumb, and is quickly hushed up because of the presence of a young child.)
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### Author:  [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2003, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popes-nose-which-pope/148017/4 "2003-01-11T22:23:29Z")
Yeppers, the Popes Nose is what it is called by catholics, I have seen elsewhere on the web that protestants tend to call it the Parsons Nose.
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### Author:  [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2003, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popes-nose-which-pope/148017/5 "2003-01-11T23:09:20Z")
Curious, the only term I’ve heard “pope’s nose” in reference to is the license plate light cover on the bonnet on early vintage Volkswagen beetles. I always presumed it to be the holy schnozz of [John XXIII](http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_xxiii/index.htm). Take a look and you’ll see the resemblance.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2003, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popes-nose-which-pope/148017/6 "2003-01-11T23:51:04Z")
I find it amazing that anyone would think a particular pope inspired this. According to the OED, “Pope’s Nose” dates back to 1796. Back then, no one outside of Rome knew what the Pope even looked like.
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### Author:  [@JeffB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeffB)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2003, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popes-nose-which-pope/148017/7 "2003-01-12T03:38:43Z")
Something that I’ve wondered about for a long time is starting to make sense now. I had never heard the term _pope’s nose_ until Scott Thompson (as Buddy Cole) used it in _Kid’s in the Hall_. From the episode where Buddy talks about being [Canadian](http://www.kithfan.org/work/transcripts/one/budcana.html):
> [@](#):
>
> [whips out a Canadian flag -handkerchief- and sneezes into it]
>
> Oh, Jesus. Oh, that’s better. Lucky I didn’t blow my Pope’s nose.