Hello everybody…I am asking this question on behalf of my lovely Dad. He says that he has heard frequent mention of ‘Cardi’s’ on Radio Cymru / S4C, which he takes to be a reference to citizens of the old county of Cardiganshire. Cardi’s often seem to be the butt of jokes, and they are put in an inferior light! If what he says seems to be the case, how did Cardi’s get this reputation? Thank you for any responses you can give…
Hello, I had asked “What does Cardi mean?” in this Forum after hearing it mentioned on S4C myself and noticing it was not translated in the subtitles.
The “Cardi” had to use a full bottle of champagne (
!) to follow a recipe in a cooking competition.
The presenter asked him how he was feeling about it, being a Cardi, and the guy answered he wanted to change it with a bottle of cheap wine (not exact words, but that was basically the meaning). 
I got an answer right away from @margarethall, explaining
“Someone who comes from Cardiganshire. I think that Cardis have a similar reputation to the Scots and Yorkshire folk as being a bit careful with their money.”
I don’t know how they got this reputation. But I happened to talk about it again with a few Cardis who actually joke about it themselves, and explained their point of view on the issue:
they’re just careful about not wasting money buying unnecessary things, making the best out of what they have, being smart and getting more for less!
I’ve also found a little book called “The Best Cardi Jokes” by John Brian and couldn’t resist buying it (in case you see it around and are curious to find out more).
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As I live in Ceredigion, I’ve encountered this. People seem to be quite proud of this reputation. I suspect it comes from that historically Ceredigion has been relatively poorer than the surrounding counties. This picture is from 1931, when I suspect motorised tractors were doing this work in other counties and the reputation stuck?
The reference to stereotypes about the Scots reminds me that the Catalans have the same reputation - they think they’re prudent, and are proud of it, other parts of Spain claim they’re mean.
Years ago, when I was doing Catalan, I was talking with my tutor about taking a Catalan exam in London, and he was saying that one difference from taking it in, say, Barcelona was that the Catalan examiners here would be more familiar with British culture. The example he gave to illustrate this was the following:
Oral examiners: Do you like shopping?
Student: Dude, I’m Scottish. (Home, sóc escocès.)
Examiners: OK, fair enough, moving on…
My tutor reckoned that had this been in Barcelona, instead of this going down well, with the wry smile of people who also recognise thrift as a virtue, it would just have been marked as “inappropriate response - clearly didn’t understand the question.”
I suppose the equivalent in Welsh would be:
Dach chi’n licio siopa?
Wel, dw i’n dod o Gatalwnia, felly…
Felly beth? (puzzled looks)