[ExI] sturgis - washington post

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 12:32 AM spike jones via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat
>
>>...Among US-Americans and inside the US, when I hear people refer
>> to as 'yanks' -- actually, it's usually 'yankees' -- they mean New
>> Englanders. It's outside the US and usually among Britons I hear
>> 'yanks' and, yeah, they mean US-Americans. You're the only US-
>> American I see using it to mean US-Americans in general. And
>> you're using it inside the US.
>
> Ja, I am an unapologetic admirer of Britain.  I already was before I
> learned that most of my ancestors came from there, England, Scotland, Wales.

Well, I was only going over this to avoid confusion. Using Britishisms
that also have a close American counterpart can do that. One can be a
Britophile without confusing others, no? :)

And there was real confusion for me since I wasn't sure what you meant
at first. (Yes, if you were British, I'd know what you meant
immediately, but a US-American using the term makes me think they
either mean someone from New England or a member of a certain baseball
team.)

> I try to write ExI posts from an international perspective.  Brits are
> generally OK with my referring to them as Limeys, which is about
> the closest to the British equivalent of Yank methinks.  I have never
> seen BillK complaining about my use of the term limey.  That one
> has a fun history: the French sailors ridiculed the Brits for requiring
> the British sailors to devour limes and lemons.  Turns out after long
> sea voyages, the French would come home with scurvy, but the
> limeys did not.  I love it when science and technology wins in the end.

Um, no. The term comes from the US from the mid-19th century. The
French had other terms for Britons that weren't as flattering and they
go back much further -- as expected given the long contact and often
contentious relationship between the two peoples. (Actually, the
earlier terms were for English rather than British because they long
predate the Act of Union.)

Regards,

Dan
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