Lordy! Lordy! Whit a stramash ower the use o' Yank or Canuck in the posting about D-Day/Operation Overlord! Allow me as an ancient to try to throw some light on the usage of the terms Yank and Canuck which seem to have "wraxed" or generated much discourse from the original message I posted about D-Day---Operation Overlord...completely overlooking the content of the posting! Relying on Google we learn that "the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming over there" is from "Over There" a 1917 song popular with United States soldiers in both world wars. It was written by George M. Cohan during World War I. "Cohan later recalled that the words and music to the song came to him while travelling by train from New Rochelle to New York shortly after the U.S. had declared war against Germany in April 1917." (Note: Nothing to do with the American Civil War!) This song, as well as "It's a Long Way to Tipperary", were popular patriotic songs during the First World War. On June 29, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt awarded Cohan the Congressional Gold Medal for this and other songs. " The word Yank then became the coin of the realm, so to speak, for an American. More: "The meaning of Yankee has varied over time. In the 18th century, it referred to residents of New England descended from the original English settlers of the region. (Mark Twain, in the following century, used the word in this sense in his novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, published in 1889.) As early as the 1770s, British people applied the term to any person from what became the United States. In the 19th century, Americans in the southern United States employed the word in reference to Americans from the northern United States (though not to recent immigrants from Europe; thus a visitor to Richmond, Virginia, in 1818 commented, "The enterprising people are mostly strangers; Scots, Irish, and especially New England men, or Yankees, as they are called"). Outside the United States, Yankee is slang for anyone from the United States. The truncated form Yank is especially popular among Britons, and may sometimes be considered offensive or disapproving." As a young lass during WWII, we would refer to the American soldiers bunked in Glasgow as Yanks, and Canadians were oftentimes referred to as Canucks, with no thought that either was offensive. Yes, we interchanged Canadian and Canuck to mean a Canadian in general or a French Canadian. It was in the context of how each was used that told the tale. Thesaurus: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. Canuck - informal term for Canadians in general and French Canadians in particular French Canadian - a Canadian descended from early French settlers and whose native language is French. Plus: ...at DePaul University... professor and linguist Craig Sirles opines: "I think --- Canuck --- comes from Iroquoians' term meaning 'from the village,' Canata and Uk," said Sireles. "And that simply collapsed into Canook or Canuck." Incidentally, my husband is a N.Y. Yank(ee), but he is simply referred to as an American! I lived in Ontario, Canada for well over a year, but I can't recall Canadians using Canuck as a nickname to refer to themselves. Again, during WWII, oftentimes Canadians would be referred to affectionately as Canucks. Usage changes, and now one no longer refers to someone from Scotland as "Scotch." That word went out of favour, I suppose, when "Scotch" became the country's greatest export...so a person was not inclined to go through life labelled "Scotch," and so, not to be infra dig, Scotch is now to be Scottish or a Scot when referring to a human. Ahem! Some people from across the Cheviots still refer to us as the "Barbarians from the North!" ☺☺☺ Maisie