Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by gnicholas 1160 days ago
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.
1 comments

> 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.