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Carpal Tunnel
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I hope that this is not a long ago exhausted topic. I have seen several derivations for the term "Yankee". The one that seemed to me the most probable stated that the Indians in Massachusetts had trouble pronouncing "English" and their approximation was "Yengees".Allegedly some of the colonists copied this in joking reference to their own group. Anyone care discuss this? wwh
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Carpal Tunnel
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old hand
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old hand
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I've seen it suggested that it derives from the name, Yonkers, which fits in with the idea of its being of Dutch origin, as per Bartleby.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I got my information from the New England Historical Genealogical Register many years ago, which placed origin almost a hundred years earlier than any Dutch connection. Also for a long time it referred only to New Englanders.
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Carpal Tunnel
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not to long ago, WOW gave a run down of Yankee-- by geography--, ie, to a European, any American is a yankee, to a person in US, a yankee is a northerner, to a Northerner, a yankee is ... with some fine distinctions about eating pie for breakfast (or was it donuts with maple syrup?) in any case, it became way too focused on food--
she left of sub-divisions, such as a Connecticut Yankee, and yankee tinker, and the Bronx bombers, who are also known as Yankee's. and we never got around to discussing Yankee-know-how--which i suspect Jackie and everyone else south of the mason Dixon line is pleased to posses, even as they disavow being yankees.
by the way, the mason-dixon line, is the southern border of the state of Pennsylvania settle a border dispute between it and Maryland. It was by a new survey, (done by a Mr. Mason and Mr. Dixon) and the border became the defacto division between north and south. It often associate with "slave holding states vs, non slave holdingstates" which conveniently forgets that NY was a slave state till 1840 or so.
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Carpal Tunnel
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to a European, any American is a yankee
To this European at least, Yank = US'n, Yankee = Northerner. Don't know where I first picked this up - might have even been Gone With The Wind! BTW, I can recommend the novel about Mason & Dixon - complex, very interesting.
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Carpal Tunnel
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The angriest Virginian I ever saw had just been called a Yankee by an Alabaman.
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Carpal Tunnel
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They were, in the mid '60s, a minor league baseball team in Columbus, Georgia, a farm club of the New York Yankees.
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Carpal Tunnel
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to a European, any American is a yankee ----------------------------------------- I don't imagine the Canadians are too well pleased by this! wow
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Carpal Tunnel
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I can recommend the novel about Mason & Dixon - complex, very interesting.Ah, the well-known C19 surveying firm? Thanks Mav, but with so many interesting books out there I think I'll have to draw the line at this one. BTW, agree that Yankee = northerner, Yank = anyone south of Canada and north of Mexico.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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