Talk:Yankee/Archive 1

message: He has the best explanation of all, and he wrote the word history within living memory of people that where there.  I'm amazed at how Wikipedia editors delete the real history of the term, and instead write convoluted explanations about some unknown "Janke".  
"There can be little doubt that the sobriquet of "Yankees" is derived from "Yengees," the manner in which the tribes nearest to New England pronounced the word "English." It is to this hour a provincialism of that part of the country to pronounce this word "Eng-lish" instead of "Ing-lish," its conventional sound. The change from "Eng-lish" to "Yengees" is very trifling.—Editor."
http://www.online-literature.com/cooperj/the-chainbearer/63/  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.11.221.49 (talk) 00:59, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Cooper is a famous novelist, and repeats a lot of stories, but he was not a famous linguist. Rjensen (talk) 01:51, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: That's like a totally absurd claim.  A guy that was there at that time has less credibility than some linguist jaw-boning 200 years later.  How many "famous" linguists are there anyway?  I can't name one person that's nationally known for analyzing word-origins.  It's a totally credible claim anyway.  Just look at how the Japanese butcher English words when they try to translate them.  They become totally unrecognizable.  En-geese and Yankees are rather close by comparison.  Go Wikipedia Editors!  You will crush the opposition to your theories one click after another until falsehoods prevail everywhere on Wikipedia.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.11.221.49 (talk) 04:04, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: James Fenimore Cooper

message: I've removed the opening sentence to this article 2 times due to gross errors that need to be discussed here, if it appears a third time is will be a 3rd revision for the author of that sentence, so I'm bringing it here. The sentence, to the best of my memory, said Yankees "were people whose ancestors arrived from Great Britain before 1700."  This is wrong for the following reasons. This is only a partial list of reasons:
1. Nothing happened in 1700 making this a date of any significance, it is merely an arbitrary date, and clearly too early, as English settlers who arrived here long after this date were still called Yankees. Many American soldiers during the revolution were first generation Brits, yet they were Yankees.
2. Great Britain includes North Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, I think the term specifically refers to English setlers. 
3. The term "Yankee" was origianlly used of the Dutch, who were the Jans and Jankes of the colonies. Why would anybody refer to an Englishman as Jan? Even more to the point, why would a DUTCHMAN refer to an Englishman as Jan? Use your heads, folks, please! People sometimes refer to others by the most common of their common names. Thus, Irishmen were Micks, Spanish were Diegos, English were John Bull, and of course, the Dutch were Jan and Janke. I don't understand why anybody would think a Dutchman would call an Englishman Janke. It would be like a German calling somebody Otto. Are you kidding? The original Yankees were Dutch and the term was used by British nationals, not British colonists. All early references of the term show that it was used by English sailors, who called us colonists Yankees because so many of our sailors had Dutch names. The Dutch as a people are a maritime people, and in America they rans the ports and built the ships, even after the colonies became British. It's so simple. English people sailing for the Crown had to find some little thing about the colonists that made us different from them, so they could use a term to poke fun at us, insult us, pick fights with us, or just rib us, because sailors were a rough bunch and liked to joke around, drunk on rum as they often were, and one obvious thing about us that made us different from them was the number of us with Dutch names, mostly in New York, which was the biggest port in the northeast, and was the port where Dutch nationals traded heavily with the English nationals, via the colonists, both of English and Dutch decent, sending sugar and rum from Dutch colonies in the Carribean, through the ports of the northern American colonies, mainly New York, which was favored by Dutch nationals because they were run by Dutch Americans, as opposed to the English ports in Virginia etc which had no Dutch, and the rum was shipped back to England for the limeys to get drunk on. So there you go, they called us Jan and Janke. And there were Dutch in New England too, so, we were lumped together, all northern colonists, as Yankees. Virginia colonists were never called Yankees, because they had no Dutch. Earth to Wiki editors, please use your heads now. Don't you get it yet? It's really simple. The New York Yankees are more than a baseball team, 200 years earlier they were Dutch colonists, and the first Yankees were New Yorkers. But the Dutch rejected the term because it was offensive, while New Englanders borrowed and embraced the term. I don't know what can be easier to understand than this. Even a cave man can do it! How can I make this more clear??? And please don't make me cite references or I'll hit you over the head with a bottle of rum.
Morgan Wright 04:04, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Taken from article:
The etymology is uncertain; one suggestion is that it derives from Dutch Janke, diminutive of Jan (John), or Jan Kees, for "John Cheese", a nickname for English settlers bestowed by the Dutch in the early days of New York City. The phrase was probably popularized by the English in the song Yankee Doodle Dandee to describe New Yorkers, and perhaps, all (Northern) Americans in the colonies.
* In dutch, Janken = To Cry
* Jan Kees -> Johan Cornelis -> Joh(a)n Cornelius. 
Cheese = Kaas
Dutch would call English settlers John Cheese? Well, dutch folks are often called cheeseheads (because of their smell I think :-| ), so that part would more likely be the other way around.
Hmm, is the above original research perhaps? Could anyone provide a cite?
Kim Bruning 21:08, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Jan Kees, Yeah right! ;-)

message: There's no source on this "chronic masturbation" paragraph at the start.  I'm removing it until it gets sourced. Rob 12:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: By all means, it looks like bullshit. Sylvain1972 17:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice!!! >P  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.218.23.158 (talk) 12:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: I'm not buying it

message: The article says the first use of the word to refer to Americans generally came in the 1880s, but there's a cartoon right beside that claim from the 1770s. 24.29.134.41 19:41, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Contradiction

message: This article seems to give the impression that the word "Yankee" is used often in the US, it is extremly rare to refer to another American (from any region) as a "Yankee" and absolutly never a "Yank".
:Have you spent much time in the South? It's still fairly commonly used there to describe Northerners.  Funnyhat 06:07, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. In the South "Yankee" means a non-Southerner and is used constantly.141.166.112.252 21:48, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Have you ever been to Vermont? They have a magazine called Yankee Magazine, for some reason the Vermonters are proud to call themselves Yankees, and they call everybody else Flatlanders. Except New Hampshire people, they tolerate NH people, but hate everybody else, especially New Yorkers
Morgan Wright 18:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Yankee"

message: seppo is widely used in Australia as well as yank, I am having difficulty trying to incorporate into the seppo paragraph if someone could help me with it would be great I've also found a source here http://www.australiatravelsearch.com.au/trc/slang.html cheers Bnsbeaver 12:33, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: seppo

message: "Strine" means "Australian" as in "the Australian language", not as in "a person from Australia" (see ). The word is misused in the article; deleting. — Paul G 16:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Strine

message: Neither John Kerry nor Hillary Clinton seem to defintely qualify as Yankees. Clinton does not appear to have colonial northeastern ancestry. Although Kerry is a Roman Catholic Democrat, it seems like a better case could be made for him, as a member of the Protestant Forbes Family on his mother's side.  Correct me if I'm wrong.
::Clinton isn't Yankee, according to her autobiography. John FORBES Kerry is scion of the Forbes family, one of the oldest and most important Yankee families.Rjensen 23:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No one who's largely of New-England settler descent (the meaning of "Yankee", here in southern New England) would class either senator from Massachusetts as a Yankee.  John Kerry's father was an immigrant; his mother is only partly descended from settler stock.  For accuracy's sake, citation of Mr. Kerry as "Yankee" should be excised.  76.232.63.181 (talk) 03:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Modern Yankee Politicians

message: On "Yankees" as an ethnic group, see Oscar Handlin, "Yankees," in Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, ed. by Stephan Thernstrom, (1980) pp 1028-1030. The term is commonly used for a person of New England descent, including those living elsewhere who continue the heritage. Thus books like Yankees in Paradise: The New England Impact on Hawaii by Bradford Smith (1956); Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Century New England (1988)by William Dillon Piersen; A Yankee in Creole Country by Elizabeth Gentry Sayad (2004); Yankees and Yorkers (1940) by Dixon R. Fox. about New York State; They Chose Minnesota: a survey of the state's ethnic groups by  J. Holmquist )1988) has a chapter on the Yankees. David M. Ellis looked at Yankee-Dutch tensions in the Albany NY in his article on "Yankee-Dutch Confrontation" (1972)' Joseph Schafer in 1931 wrote of "Yankee-Teuton Rivalry in Wisconsin" in the 1870s. Rjensen 08:29, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the article makes note of that.Sylvain1972 13:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Yankee: usage to designate an ethnic group

message: In Colombia Yankee is called sometimes to a person that is big.. muscles... --Azuero 07:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: In Colombia

message: People need to study the origin of the word to understand why we cannot point to 17th century British colonists as the original Yankees. Too much of the writing in this article is about early British colonists, 1610 and on, yet those people were never called Yankees at the time, they were universlly called English. The Yankees of the 17th century were the Dutch, and there is NO EVIDENCE that the term was ever used for the British until the late 18th century, so please, people, let's lay off all the writings of the early colonization of New England by the English, from Plymouth Plantation on, because this article is about Yankees. New England had no Yankees until they started calling themselves Yankees during the revolution when the British army referred to all the colonists by the previously insulting term they had used for the Dutch. If you went back the the 17th century and asked people in Boston about the Yankees, they would point to the guys with the little pointy hats named Jan Van Ten Broek and Pieter VanRensselaer, not the Smiths and the Jonses. Get your history straight. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Morgan Wright (talk • contribs) 02:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: More examples. "It is the hat badge of the Canadian Armoured Carrier Regiment from WW2. They complained that in England they were constantly mistaken for Aussies......until the spoke and then they were mistaken for Yanks." at ; or "Canadians take it as an insult though. They're often called 'Yanks' too." at . Australians too: "It's a real worry that Aussies in Europe are now being tagged "New Yanks"." at  Rjensen 14:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Yankee not people of English ancestry

message: Perhaps something should be said of the many scuffles that have probably resulted from some unfortunate European or Canadian refering to tourists from below the Mason-Dixon line as "Yanks." Unlike Canadians, bearing the Battle Flag don't seem to do us alot of good in clearing up the misconception.
74.36.192.45 11:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: A Georgia Rebel in Queen Elizabeth's Court

message: Look folks. I've said it twice and this is the third time. Yankees were originally (in the 1600's) the Dutch Colonists, then they were Dutch and English colonists in the north (1700 to 1776) and then the term was embraced by all New England Americans, whether of English, Polish, Transylvanian, or Khazakistan descent, and rejected by the Dutch as offensive. The term NEVER meant early English colonists!! Yet people are writing about how the Yankee influence has extended as far west as Honolulu? What is this? Do you mean English? There were English colonists in Virginia, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, all the other 13 colonies!! Not just New England? What cultural influence to Yankee English settlers have that other English settlers don't have, and by now how are they different from Americans of all European ancestry? This whole big story of early English colonists? Those people were English, not Yankees! The term Yankee was not even used for the people of New England until the revolution! Before then, is was a nickname for the Dutch! If there isn't serious rewriting of this article, then I will do it. All this talk about early Yankee settlers sounds like it was written by somebody from Woosta or Lesta or Glosta or Lemsta tooting his horn about how great New England is, sort of a booster for a Yankee pep rally. Ra ra sis boom ba. Morgan Wright 21:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Please people I beseech you!! Stop with the early British history of New England this is an article about Yankees!!

message: If ever an article demonstrated the absurdity and self-censorship of using "respectable" sources, this is it.  The term originated as an insult.  Everyone knows what Yankee originally meant.  It became embraced and developed from insult to term of pride and its vulgar history was disappeared.  Seriously, Jan Kees?  Why would the british troups use a dutch epitet for an english name?  Families did not encourage their daughters to go to the new world unmarried, and the men seriously outnumbered the women.  If only they had wiki then we would know better now
207.235.124.242 02:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Yankee originates with the song, song an insult

message: I strongly dispute that Americans only consider people to be Yankees if they're from above the Mason-Dixon Line. Maryland and Delaware, both below that line, are commonly acknowledged as Northern states. I live in Virginia, and even there Maryland is very definitely thought of as a Yankee state. 
Similarly, my Maryland-born relatives living in South Carolina are constantly stopped on the streets and asked about their (very strong) Maryland accent, these encounters invarably including the phrase "You Yankee!" at some point. 
Also, within Virginia itself, people from Northern Virginia are sometimes referred to as Yankees by people from Southern Virginia. 
To say that most Southerners would look at a state like Maryland or Delaware and view that as part of their own region is completely untrue.
:My relatives (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) consider anyone living north of Interstate 10 to be Northerners/Yankees. Mylorin 20:14, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Yankee" Within the United States

message: I simply support this notion.. it does make much more sense that the "Jan Kees" stuff.. 
Although this ethymological root is widely promoted even in the serious dictionaries.
I stumbled over it in a new adaption of the very movie "The last Mohican" and it DOES make sense..
I'd like to encourage any Ethymologist to have a closer look  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martin Hallerbach (talk • contribs) 22:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Support this etymology 

message: Oh my!  Never have I seen a discussion page soo...um...spirited in discussion?  Yes, that's a nice way of putting it.  With all the "facts" for this page coming and going and being thrown out and contradicting each other and oh my, no one even mentions that the term yankee originated with the song Yankee Doodle Dandy, and that song can be verifiably traced definitively to Fort Crailo in the city of Rensselaer, New York across the Hudson River from Albany, NY.  It was a song written as a joke about the Conneticut militiamen who came up to serve under the British in Fort Crailo during the French and Indian Wars (back when the colonies were all loyal British folk), the local Dutch decendents thought they were urban and sophisticated (Albany was one of the 5 largest cities in the colonies at that time) and these silly Conneticut farmers would "stick a feather" in their hats, and "call it macaroni" macaroni being a term common back then that refered to stylish nice clothes, trendy clothes.  Look up yankee doodle dandy or fort crailo on google or ask.com or anywhere and verify this if you dont believe me.  So, PLEASE, feel free to respond, and more than that, feel free to pare this entire article down to real facts that can be verified.  Can the term yankee be traced back farther than yankee doodle dandy and Fort Crailo? Perhaps...but this is an encyclopedia, not a history conference of professor's debating scholarship and entymology and history and linguistics, etc, etc.  Camelbinky 19:13, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Yankee Doodle Dandy

message: I believe this article fails to show just how incredibly rare the word "Yankee" and especially "Yank" are in the United States(Aside from the sports team). Reading it makes it seem like the term is as common as it is in the United Kingdom or Australia. This is certainly not so. Two decades living in several states, all around the nation and I have never heard it applied in a serious manner to anybody. Most Americans, upon learning that some nations call them "Yanks" find it hilarious and archaic. Travis T. Cleveland (talk) 14:41, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, quite right. I don't think that the article means to imply that usage of "Yankee" or "Yank" is frequent in the U.S. The article uses the term "popular meaning." I think that this is meant to imply that it is a colloquial term rather than refer to its frequency of use. Sunray (talk) 15:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know if you've ever lived in any southen states, but I live in North Carolina and I do hear it used somewhat frequently, though usually in more rural areas and by older people. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Rare

message: I am not a wikipedian, but if any editors are interested here is a lead on a compelling addition to etymology: http://thepiratesdilemma.com/the-tao-of-pirates/etymology-of-a-yankee
This entry mentions it being applied to "freebooters" as well http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Yankee.  I would guess there is considerable source material off line for these suggestions.24.21.35.23 (talk) 03:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: And I thought Korean yanggwae, but nothing's gonna happen without some Wikipedia:Reliable sources. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:53, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Yankee = Pirate

message: Well im from britain and i've never heard the term yank (we never use yankee) used as a derogatory term in itself. It's generally just used to refer to Americans in general. Though it is often used in playful sometimes insulting jokes about Americans (for the sake of argument i wont go into specifics).
It is the same way with immigrants from the SANZAR nations and Canada (we get a lot of teachers from them). [[[Special:Contributions/86.153.24.6|86.153.24.6]] (talk)]
I'm in South Wales, and the term "Yank" is rarely heard - it's a generational thing, used by those who lived through WWII, but virtually unknown to today's youngsters. 91.108.144.69 (talk) 19:07, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that it is necessarily a derogatory term, although perhaps when used to refer to that specific subset of the population. A "New England Yankee" might also simply be a frugal (even cheap), reserved (even unfriendly), and aloof "salt of the earth" type person. Not all of the original settlers are wealthy today; some still live in rural communities as farmers, etc. --TimothyDexter (talk) 21:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Yank/ee as a derogatory term in the Commonwealth?

message: Came across this: Report on “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Hail Columbia,” “America,” “Yankee Doodle” (1909) by Oscar G. Sonneck (1873–1928), appears to be originally published in 1909, and debunks every single theory listed in this article for the origin of "Yankee."  Perhaps someone willing to dig into some other older texts could rewrite this section of the article much more meaningfully, perhaps pointing that even shortly after widespread use of the term Yankee to refer to Americans, no one could figure out where the term came from?  That alone is more informative than listing all the various theories of its origin. 69.135.185.154 (talk) 01:57, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The origins are often debated.  There is another article on the origins dating to 1938 from The American Dialect Society.  Anyone who has access to JSTOR can read the full article.  Otherwise, the first page of the article is still rather informative. --Xaliqen (talk) 18:36, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Origins

message: I had always heard that to a Vermonter a Yankee was someone who ate apple pie with cheese. Khajidha (talk) 18:33, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Aphorism variant

message: this page itself shows the various meanings of the terms which should be included in the lead. If not as itself then with the caveat the word means different things in different part of the country and the world.Lihaas (talk) 12:26, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I agree, but I'm not sure. Your statement in itself is not justification for making the opening so US-centric. Can you please have another go at explaining what you're trying to achieve? HiLo48 (talk) 18:24, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Yankee usage in lead

message: currently the wikipedia article on the word 'yankee' includes this definition, under : In other parts of the world
"Joshua Slocum, in his 1899 book Sailing Alone Around the World refers to Nova Scotians  as being the only or true Yankees. It thus may be implied, as he himself was a Nova Scotian, that he had pride in his ancestry. "Yankee" in this instance, instead of connoting a form of derision, is therefore a form of praise; perhaps relevant to the hardy seagoing people of the East Coast at that time."
this is actually in fact opposite of what joshua slocum wrote in his book.  
it is available at google books, and at archive.org
on top of page two of mr. slocum's 'Sailing Alone Around the World' (he was the first person to sail round the world alone)
  you will find  the following: 
" though I am a citizen 
of the United States a naturalized Yankee, if it 
may be said that Nova Scotians are not Yankees 
in the truest sense of the word."
in other words, whoever put this reference into the article has never really read the book they are talking about.
or somehow mistook the original sources' : 'not Yankees'  
for: ' Nova Scotians  as being the only or true Yankees'
this is unacceptable. a few generations back, every schoolchild had to read this book.
it was standard reading in u.s. schools for ages.
here you may read the original book yourselves:
http://www.archive.org/stream/sailingalonearou00slocuoft/sailingalonearou00slocuoft_djvu.txt
look at the beginning of page 2.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.227.158.153 (talk) 06:29, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: the example given of the word 'yankee' in reference to joshua slocum is factually incorrect

message: I've been looking for the term of a dirty yankee. I really don't know but I only heard it from President Obama.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nderadio96 (talk • contribs) 14:12, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Dirty Yankee?

message: In the other parts of the world portion of the uses section it refers to Finns using Jenkkilä for the United States. A similar usage, Yanquilandia, is not uncommon in Latin America. Who is like God? (talk) 03:31, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: "Yankeeland"

message: I was just reading some stuff by Washington Irving and wondered why he would have Dutch Americans referring to, or thinking of, English New Englanders as "Yankees".  But of course Irving was a wise guy, who knew what he -- an English-descended American writing in England of a time past -- was doing.  Yet if anyone were to take his writings seriously, they might be genuinely confused, when it's obvious it would've been those of English descent referring to the Dutch as Yankees.  So I'm strongly inclined to go along with what's been written above, i.e. that British nationals generalized a slur (or at least somewhat demeaning pet name) on the Dutch Americans by applying them to all Americans in and around New Holland and New England.67.83.50.182 (talk) 21:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: confusion engendered by Washington Irving

message: In the Dutch origins section, I noticed this: (NOTE: the Dutch name "Janneke" is the female version of "Jan", not the diminutive of "Jan", which in fact is "Jantje" meaning little John!)
If this is true, the paragraph should be corrected. If it is false, the note should be removed. Either way, the note should not be there in parentheses with the word NOTE attached to it. 151.203.162.86 (talk) 00:45, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Note

message: The name Jan is the Dutch version of John. Kees is the common Dutch nickname for Cornelius. Kees is also an archaic word for a baboon in Afrikaans, a language derived from Dutch. Jan Kees is thus a derogatory term meaning "John Baboon.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brinkal1000 (talk • contribs) 09:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL63.155.157.177 (talk) 20:24, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source of Jan Kees 

message: "L'Anglais" always refers to an Englishman or English-speaking man, but never the English language, which would be either "la langue Anglaise," or just "Anglais". It also cannot be used to refer to the English people in general (that would be "Les Anglais" or "Les Anglaises".) The "A" is always capitalized, just like in English. All this lends credence to the idea that it is an Algonquin (or possibly Iroquoian, less likely since their second language was English, not French)  mispronunciation, probably in a trading situation with one or more translators. Indians were ubiquitous in Colonial America, especially in the cities where they loved to visit, party and trade. This didn't change until nearly the beginning of the Federal period, after the Revolution.63.155.157.177 (talk) 20:40, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  L'Anglais 

message: Will somebody help write about the new section I have introduced into the article about "Yankee"?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.100.13.189 (talk) 04:25, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  read this 

message: When the British call Americans "Yanks" or "Yankees" they are just plain wrong. It would be like the Americans saying anyone from Britain was English. Yankees are from New England,  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.116.87.110 (talk) 13:01, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: In Britain yank refers to all Americans. Not wrong, just different. --2.216.81.183 (talk) 14:21, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yankee does not mean American 

message: I suggest that this sentence, even if it were true, does not belong in the lede. The controversies over the etymology are given their due discussion in their own section. It is inappropriate to give one of the claimants prominent placement, and without explanatory context. I see that etymologies have emotional baggage, and I would not dare attempt to remove this sentence.  TomS TDotO (talk) 05:23, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed it. Dropped in as the second sentence of the article, it was added in a completely wrong place (obvious non sequitur), let alone the point about whether it is even added at all. If anyone thinks it belongs in the article, they would need to make a lot more effort than was made to integrate it logically. But it was just as likely trolling, anyway. — ¾-10 21:15, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  American Indians could not pronounce the word English 

message: I was surprised not to find the definition of "Yankee" that I'm familiar with in the lead paragraph with the others. It's mentioned briefly under "In the United States":
"However, within New England itself, the term still refers more specifically to old-stock New Englanders of English descent."  
That's it. See also Boston Brahmin. Here are some examples:
: "Certainly the Irish have for years complained of Yankee discrimination against them." 
:: —
: "There were no civil rights groups then. Even the Federal Government was controlled by bigoted Yankees and Irish who banded together against the Italian immigrant." 
:: —
: "The one anomaly of this era was the election of Yankee Republican Leverett Saltonstall as governor in 1938, and even then Saltonstall jokingly attributed his high vote totals in Irish districts to his 'South Boston face'." 
:: —
Would it be okay to add the New England definition to the lead paragraph, and say a little more about it in the text? (Maybe even just include one of these examples)? Rosekelleher (talk) 17:25, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  New England definition 

message: "Yankee" in its classic, New England usage is widely out of use. As such, this lengthy article is effectively serving as a memorial to a dead word. I propose that a further emphasis is placed on the the two meanings of the term that are still in common usage, the Southern American one (where the word holds significant cultural meaning) and the international.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by BROBAFETT (talk • contribs) 07:27, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: memorials to the dead? well scholars call it "History" and it's still taught in the best schools.  Rjensen (talk) 07:47, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: BROBAFETT doesn't like New Englanders I suppose. But it hardly matters since he is unaware of the serious scholarship about the Yankee. Rjensen (talk) 10:17, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

text: Souther usage is covered in the opening and in 5.1.  What reliable sources are you using? Rjensen (talk) 11:36, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  The vast majority of this article concerns an antiquated usage of the term 

message: Not sure how to properly cite it, but the classic definition from Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary should surely be mentioned here. That is: "Yankee: n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)."--Khajidha (talk) 23:53, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Damn Yankee 

message: In Dutch Jan is short for "Johannes" or "John" and Kees is short for "Cornelius". Kees is however also an antiquated term for a baboon and is occasionally used in Afrikaans, my home language. This thus means that Yankee is a portmanteau of "John Baboon", a insulting term for the Dutch.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andre Laurent Brink (talk • contribs) 13:12, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: This idea was suggested above (by someone named "Brinkal", perhaps only coincidentally). It's an interesting notion; do you have anything to cite for corroboration? —Dilidor (talk) 11:35, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dutch Origin of the term Yankee. 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: "Preposterous", is not an argument against a possible and very plausible consideration of the origin of the word, considering half the colonists were Dutch and Yankee Doodle was a well known Dutch song or doodle. Dutch medieval style hats all had feathers on them and they still do. 
The American COLONISTS who were largely Dutch were hated by the English because of their Viking background, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and many other skirmishes and it was the ENGLISH who started calling them Yankee Doodles, especially the Dutch soldiers who especially wore large feathers in their hats. 
Because of this rivalry and animosity, the term "Yankee doodle dandy" in British conversation implied unsophisticated misappropriation of high-class fashion, as though simply sticking a feather in one's cap would make one to be noble.R. Ross, Clothing: a global history: or, The Imperialists' new clothes (Polity, 2008), p. 51. Peter McNeil, professor of fashion studies, claims that the British were insinuating that the colonists were low-class men lacking masculinity, emphasizing that the American men were womanly.Peter McNeil, That Doubtful Gender: Macaroni Dress and Male Sexualities (Fashion Theory, 1998), pp. 411-48.
The song "Yankee Doodle" was a pre-Revolutionary War song originally sung by British military officers to mock the disheveled, disorganized colonial "Yankees" with whom they served in the French and Indian War, apparently written c. 1755 by British Army surgeon Dr. Richard Shuckburgh while campaigning in upper New York.See www.etymonline.com, "Yankee Doodle". The British troops sang it to make fun of their stereotype of the American soldier as a Yankee simpleton who thought that he was stylish if he simply stuck a feather in his cap. 
The Dutch colonialists, known to the English as "Yankee Doodles", deserve much of the credit for the success of the rebellion against Britain. Prof. William F. Marina, The Dutch-American Guerrillas of the American Revolution (Independent Institute, 1983).
In retaliation the song became popular among the Americans as a song of defiance. As per the American Library of Congress, the American colonialists added additional verses to the song, mocking the British troops and hailing the Commander of the Continental army George Washington. By 1781, the song Yankee Doodle had turned from being an insult to being a song of national pride. for those identifying as disheveled, disorganized colonial "Yankees".
Considering all the cultural and obvious ties between the Dutch song "Yankee Doodle" and the term "Yankee" for the American colonialists, this seems the only evident and plausible explanation of how the term "Yankee" came to identify the Americans of the American Revolution.
:::It is not at all true to claim [above] The American COLONISTS who were largely Dutch were hated by the English because of their Viking background, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and many other skirmishes and it was the ENGLISH who started calling them Yankee Doodles, especially the Dutch soldiers who especially wore large feathers in their hats.  The Dutch American colonists lived in New York State and not in New England, where the British soldiers were stationed. Relations between England and Holland were mixed--there were several wars but in 1689 the English leadership brought in a Dutch prince to be their King--William III of England. The "Viking background" bit is off the wall. Rjensen (talk) 18:45, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: "Half the colonists were Dutch" is simply wrong. The only Dutch colony was New Netherland, which had ceased to be Dutch at all long before the American Revolutionary War. There were 13 colonies, and they were all English. The reason that I called this notion "preposterous" is because you are suggesting that someone wrote a song called "Yankee Doodle" before the word Yankee even existed! That does not even make sense logically. Regardless of all these other points, my main contention is that this amounts to original research—and that is why I reverted it.  —Dilidor (talk) 10:06, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yankee Doodle