Hi Jim , Barb and all , Great addition to my meager "Yankee Poop" Thanks I am saving your additions, Barb , The Blue Belly, does make sense as CW Yankees being called that! Love all these little sidelines genealogy gets us into. about computer: Well, I did another virus check, I had just updated last night. :) No virus.. That's a blessing. :) I am not sure if it came from the MA-Mendon list or private.. Never got a chance to look. Probably was private?? But my computer didn't like something I received. , Well, whatever, it's all clear now. Thanks all for the encouragement. Alice Subject: [MA-MENDON] Yankee & Blue blood >I checked several sources for Yankee, blue blood, blue belly, & swamp >Yankee. I found nothing on the latter two. I have the impression that >swamp Yankee is a regional colloquialism because I never heard of it until I >started doing New England research. > >I checked 1) Fowler's "Modern English Usage", 2) Almond's "Dictionary of >Word Origins", and 3) Freeman's "The Story Behind the Word". > >References 2 & 3 agreed that "blue blood" has Spanish origins. No. 2 said >it was applied to persons of aristocratic families as opposed to all others. >No. 3 said the nobles used it to distinguish themselves from the darker >skinned Moors. > >All three references agreed that the origins of "Yankee" are uncertain. It >was first applied to anyone of old New England stock. In the "War Between >the States" southerners used it for anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line but >usually prepended the word "damn". Europeans & other nationalities use it >to mean anyone from the U. S. > >Ref. #2 & #3 said the most popular belief about the origin of Yankee is that >it came from the Dutch "Jan Kees" a variant of "Jan Kaas", which literally >means "John Cheese", an ethnic insult applied by New Yorkers to Hollanders >(cheese being a national product of Holland.) > >John Fennimore Cooper, author of "Deerslayer" believed that the Indians >originally pronounced "English" as "Yengees", but there is no evidence to >support it. The Scottish word "yankie" means a gigantic falsehood. The >Dutch "Jahnke" is a diminutive form of "Jan" or "John". > >Jim Bullock >Littleton, CO > > >============================== >Ancestry.com Genealogical Databases >http://www.ancestry.com/rd/rwlist2.asp >Search over 2500 databases with one easy query! >