Are you a Rebel or a Yankee

@cclay34 (486)
United States
December 12, 2006 9:35am CST
Are you a rebel or a yankee and what differance does it make anyhow ?
2 responses
@kataztrophy (1836)
• United States
12 Dec 06
Within the United States, the term Yankee can have many different contextually and geographically dependent meanings. Traditionally Yankee was most often used to refer to a New Englander (in which case it may denote New England puritan and thrifty values), but today refers to anyone coming from a state north of the Mason-Dixon line, with a specific focus still on New England. However, within New England itself, the term is often understood to refer more specifically to old-stock New Englanders of English descent. The term WASP, in use since the 1960s, is comparable. The term "Swamp Yankee" is used in rural Rhode Island, eastern Connecticut, and southeastern Massachusetts to refer to Protestant farmers of moderate means and their descendants (as opposed to upper-class Yankees). The old Yankee twang survives mainly in the hill towns of interior New England. The most characteristic Yankee food was the pie; Yankee author Harriet Beecher Stowe in her novel Oldtown Folks celebrated the social traditions surrounding the Yankee pie. In the American South the term is still used as a derisive term for Northerners, especially those who migrate to the South. From 1860 to the 1920s a favored term was "damnyankee" (spelled as one word). Another southern usage is yankee dime which means a kiss. Southerners, by and large, do not care to be referred to as "yank" or "yankee" when traveling abroad. A humorous aphorism attributed to E.B. White summarizes these distinctions: To foreigners, a Yankee is an American. To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner. To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander. To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter. And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.
@dalilac1 (862)
• United States
12 Dec 06
Red Neck at Heart - Red Neck all the Way!
I don't know what difference it makes but I am from New York and have recently moved to Alabama, so I am told that I am a Yankee lol, I tell them " No I am a transplanted redneck:))". Where did the classification ever come from anyway?