Pete it wasn't you to whom I was refering but the original poster in this thread who refers to his wife Mally by both terms. I mistook your explanation for an explanation of why HE was using both terms to apply to one person as in to say "That's the way it's done in the UK". I can see now that you meant the general public makes no distinction which is often the same here in the States.

At least here, Non-ethnic folks who live a "transient" lifestyle are not looked down upon too harshly. We do call the type of person who used to follow the Grateful Dead "Bus Gypsies" if they live in a van or bus and "Bus Gypsies" can also mean people living in their cars in cities but nobody for a moment believes they are either Freeborn Irish or Rom. it's just a term.

On the East Coast, where I was raised, people do still call Freeborns "Tinkers" but "Tinker" can also mean someone making a marginal living performing services or selling goods from a wagon, car, bus, van, trunk etc. It was not uncommon in the Irish part of the Catskills to see non-traveller Irish (Country Irish) spending the summer selling music or Irish Cotton/wool goods out of a cabinet or wagon. They'd ply their trade to the folks up from NYC for vacation in little resort towns such as East Durham.

Now when I say resort, I don't mean fancy high living - just family cabins, a communal dining hall and nightyl entertainment in the dining hall. My grandmother and her siblings went East Durham in the 1920s as single girls with their brothers and cousins and I went with my friends in the 1980s. Not much had changed. I believe I still have a wonderful lavender and green wool shawl I bought from a Trunk salesmen there. Come end of summer, those folks either returned to stores they owned or mail order businesses. So you can see its not the same.