Y is for Yankee Doodle
Texture by Kim Klassen Café: Revolution
It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.
~Benjamin Franklin, 1776
Yes, I’m playing fast and loose with the letters and quotes again. July 4th we celebrate our nation’s Independence Day so I thought it would be fitting to pick a quote from a founding father. In looking for a quote from one of them, I ran across the term Yankee Doodle and remembered the song Yankee Doodle Dandy from the 1940s Broadway musical of the same name. What the heck in a Yankee Doodle anyway…much less a Dandy one?
Weeeeeelllllll, here’s the scoop.
According to Wikipedia:
As a term, Doodle first appeared in the early seventeenth century, and is thought to derive from the Low German dudel or dödel, meaning “fool” or “simpleton.” The Macaroni wig was an extreme fashion in the 1770s and became contemporary slang for foppishness.The implication of the verse was therefore probably that the Yankees were so unsophisticated that they thought simply sticking a feather in a cap would make them the height of fashion.
Yankee Doodle went to town,
Riding on a pony;
He stuck a feather in his hat,
And called it macaroni
Hmmm.
The origins of this affectionate term’s tune is that it was a pre-Revolutionary War song sung by British military officers to make fun of the ragtag, disorganized colonial soldiers when they fought the French and Indian War together. Little did they realize, those same men would be fighting alongside the French against them in a war for the freedom of the American colonies to govern themselves.
The rest, as they say, is history. Not too shabby for a ragtag bunch of doodles.
The times that tried men’s souls are over-and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.
–Thomas Paine 1776
Happy Birthday United States of America!
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