Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jjtheblunt 1160 days ago
Yankee?
1 comments

That would offend many people in the southeastern United States
true. i think Yanks is common though for overseas referal to US citizens, since they don't bother honoring the confederacy or something like that.
Most of the online dictionaries I checked showed that "Yankee" is a derogatory or possibly offensive word, including in British English. This is not a purely domestic (US-based) connotation.
> Most of the online dictionaries I checked showed that "Yankee" is a derogatory or possibly offensive word, including in British English. This is not a purely domestic (US-based) connotation.

I believe Yankee originated in the Revolutionary War era as a kind of slur used by the British against Americans, but then was reappropriated.