Also not some dude with a drawl from Alabama just because Brits or others call him 'yank' when he serves in the US military overseas.
Having grown up in Texas, it was very disorienting when I was in Australia as an 18 year old Marine and the girls kept calling me a yank.
I guess the truth of the matter is that what exactly is a yankee changes depending on who is the speaker. Where and when I grew up it basically meant anyone from a non-Confederate State. Though not usually applied to Westerners whose States were not yet States at the time of the War of Northern Aggression, we did use in reference to pretty much anyone from far enough North (such as say, the Dakotas).
I have also been in circles where the definition was more tightly defined, though.
From what you have told me about your family background the girls in Oz probably weren't too far off. I doubt you sound like a Southerner for example.
Yankees, that is old stock British Protestants (with some Dutch) moved out west of course. Places like San Francisco, Oregon, Washington, bear their mark. Seattle is a center of Unitarianism. So there is a similarity in attitudes. In California the northern part wamore pro-union during the Civil War. Southern California was settled more by Southerners. I'd venture to guess this accounts in part for why Orange County is as conservative as it is.
I'm not from the Northeast but I am from a dissenter Profestant background with Puritans in my family tree. I'll be hard to convince me a Bostonian of Sicilian ancestry is more of a Yankee than me but I guess it could be debated.
How much I sound like a Southerner/Texan is often directly proportional to how much I’ve had to drink and/or with whom I am talking and for how long. If I am talking to old friends over a few beers, I will start talking with more of a regional accent. You’re right, though. My normal speaking voice is fairly standard American (I forget the exact name for it these days, not exactly mid-western but kind of).
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Thisismyvoatusername ago
Having grown up in Texas, it was very disorienting when I was in Australia as an 18 year old Marine and the girls kept calling me a yank.
I guess the truth of the matter is that what exactly is a yankee changes depending on who is the speaker. Where and when I grew up it basically meant anyone from a non-Confederate State. Though not usually applied to Westerners whose States were not yet States at the time of the War of Northern Aggression, we did use in reference to pretty much anyone from far enough North (such as say, the Dakotas).
I have also been in circles where the definition was more tightly defined, though.
Joe_McCarthy ago
From what you have told me about your family background the girls in Oz probably weren't too far off. I doubt you sound like a Southerner for example.
Yankees, that is old stock British Protestants (with some Dutch) moved out west of course. Places like San Francisco, Oregon, Washington, bear their mark. Seattle is a center of Unitarianism. So there is a similarity in attitudes. In California the northern part wamore pro-union during the Civil War. Southern California was settled more by Southerners. I'd venture to guess this accounts in part for why Orange County is as conservative as it is.
I'm not from the Northeast but I am from a dissenter Profestant background with Puritans in my family tree. I'll be hard to convince me a Bostonian of Sicilian ancestry is more of a Yankee than me but I guess it could be debated.
Thisismyvoatusername ago
How much I sound like a Southerner/Texan is often directly proportional to how much I’ve had to drink and/or with whom I am talking and for how long. If I am talking to old friends over a few beers, I will start talking with more of a regional accent. You’re right, though. My normal speaking voice is fairly standard American (I forget the exact name for it these days, not exactly mid-western but kind of).
Joe_McCarthy ago
The Midwest, of course, is basically a Yankee region with a bunch of Germans and Catholics Americanized by them.