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Even Judson Hale, the editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, admits that defining a Yankee is not easy, concluding generously (in one of his blog entries) that “a Yankee is someone either native to New England or perhaps whose ancestors were.”
Certain traits do exemplify the Yankee character: common sense, dry wit, a deep connection to the natural world and an acceptance of hardship. Yankees either have a penchant for storytelling that may stretch the truth or they’re taciturn.
That's because it originally referred to New England. And here it still does, usually to refer to more "traditional" New England. On the Massachusetts forum, some said they would only consider those with colonial heritage "Yankees". Can be a bit kitschy, but it's a popular magazine:
Seems like most on the forum are confused on the word.
No, from my understanding it started in New York. It was a way to make fun of the Dutch settlers of the conquered New Netherland. It was picked up by the British and others to make fun of all Americans.
How the word became warped in New England to include only the old time English settlers, I do not understand. Perhaps it was bigotry against the incoming Irish immigrants. But that is not what its original meaning was.
Indeed in New York, the boxer James O'Sullivan became "Yankee O'Sullivan" just a few years after moving to New York in the 1840s. And certainly the NY Yankees are not named after only old time New Englanders!
Another example is the 1904 song Yankee Doodle Dandy which is loosely based on a jockey named Tod Sloan. Sloan was born and raised in Indiana. So clearly for much of American history the word Yankee was used for Americans (similar to the British) although Southerners may not have seen it like that!
No, from my understanding it started in New York. It was a way to make fun of the Dutch settlers of the conquered New Netherland. It was picked up by the British and others to make fun of all Americans.
I think it was the reverse, it was what Dutch New Yorkers called the nearby English-speaking settlers in New England.
I think it was the reverse, it was what Dutch New Yorkers called the nearby English-speaking settlers in New England.
I used to think this but today I think it is unlikely. You think the English settlers started calling themselves a Dutch insult? It would be like white people calling themselves "the honkys" or the Germans calling themselves "the Krauts".
Most linguists look to Dutch sources, noting the extensive interaction between the colonial Dutch in New Netherland (now largely New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and western Connecticut) and the colonial English in New England (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and eastern Connecticut). The Dutch given names Jan ("John") and Kees ("Cornelius") were and still are common and the two sometimes are combined in a single name, e.g., Jan Kees de Jager. The word Yankee is a variation that could have referred to the Dutch Americans.[7]
Michael Quinion and Patrick Hanks argue that the term refers to the Dutch pet name Janneke[9] or Janke[10] ("Johnny"), which – owing to the Dutch pronunciation of J as the English Y – would be Anglicized as "Yankee". Quinion and Hanks posit it was "used as a nickname for a Dutch-speaking American in colonial times" and could have grown to include non-Dutch colonists as well.[9]
H. L. Mencken derived it from the slur "John Cheese", applied by the English colonists to the Dutch – "Here comes a John Cheese"[11] – owing to the importance of their dairy cultivation, which introduced the black-and-white dairy cow from Friesland and North Holland to America in the mid-1600s. The modern Dutch for John Cheese is Jan Kaas but this would be spoken Jan Kees in some dialects.
That's because it originally referred to New England. And here it still does, usually to refer to more "traditional" New England. On the Massachusetts forum, some said they would only consider those with colonial heritage "Yankees". Can be a bit kitschy, but it's a popular magazine:
It used to refer to New England, but New York took it along with telephones, subways, sports, mayors, and all the other things that New Yorkers have taken or copied from New England over the last few centuries.
When we relocated to Florida from Ohio I was told that, "A Yankee is anyone who comes here from the North and a damn Yankee is one that who stays here."
Basically, it depends on who is saying it, what year they said it, who they were referring to, and the context. However:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kemba
I DO notice that when the term 'Yankee' is used, by a Southerner or anyone else, it is NOT used in a negative way.
This is 100% untrue.
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