That's Not English (15 page)

In which we delve into the origins of a controversial nickname and uncover its unexpected relationship to pie.

T
o the English, all Americans are Yankees. An American can usually tell, depending on the context and the speaker, whether or not the term is being used affectionately.
Yankee
is a word with baggage—it’s complicated. Within the United States, the word is more strictly defined. Only New Englanders living in Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island are likely to be considered, or to call themselves, Yankees. And the nearer you get to the Yankees themselves, the narrower the definition becomes. E. B. White explained it well:

To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.

To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.

To Northerners, 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.

Of course, White meant the classic American double-crust fruit pie (and you might struggle to find an American who
hasn
’t eaten pie for breakfast—especially the day after Thanksgiving). In England, a fruit pie is usually made with only a top crust, and if you see a double-crust pie it is more likely to be savory, containing pork or some other meat. Although the pie-for-breakfast line may seem like a joke to outsiders, Vermonters have taken it seriously enough. Act 15 of the 1999 session of the Vermont Legislature enshrined the importance of pie eating—and certain standards for how it ought to be done—as law:

When serving apple pie in Vermont, a “good faith” effort shall be made to meet one or more of the following conditions:

(a) with a glass of cold milk,

(b) with a slice of cheddar cheese weighing a minimum of 1/2 ounce,

(c) with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Just as Americans can be doctrinaire about what is and isn’t correct to serve with pie, they are very particular about who they do—and don’t—consider to be a true Yankee. Linguist Mark Liberman, in the blog “Language Log,” recalled that, during his childhood in rural eastern Connecticut, “it was understood that only some of the people in our village were called ‘Yankees’ . . .
Later on, I learned that these people were the descendents of the English immigrants who had settled the area in the late 17th century, but when I was six or so, the characteristics that I associated with ‘Yankees’ included keeping a few farm animals on the side, trapping to earn a little extra money from furs, making hooked rugs from old socks, and shooting at garden pests . . . Although I participated in such activities with friends and neighbors, mine was certainly not a Yankee family in the local sense, and so it still takes me aback when I realize that some Texan or Virginian regards me as a Yankee.”

America may not have as long a history as England, but nevertheless there is a lot of snobbery about whose ancestors got there “first.” (Native Americans, naturally, excepted.)
Mayflower
bragging rights accrue to the descendants of the earliest settlers from England, who are considered the bluest of the blue-blood Yankees. In a country without a nobility, this is as close as one can get. This may explain why some people go to extraordinary lengths to trace their lineage back to the original
Mayflower
passengers who landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620, only about a quarter of whom survived long enough to reproduce. A cursory glance at the daunting application requirements for the Mayflower Society would be enough to discourage most of the estimated twenty to thirty million descendants; still, the society has about twenty-seven thousand members. But a Yankee wasn’t—and still isn’t—always admired. Experts disagree on the origin of the word
Yankee
, but one thing we know for sure is that who qualifies as a Yankee, and whether or not that person is being mocked, has always depended on who you ask.

Prior to the American Revolution,
Yankee
was an insult.
British soldiers had nothing but contempt for the soldiers of the American colonies, who seemed to them a ragtag army of amateurs. The song “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” now familiar to all American children, was once sung by the English to tease their rivals: “Yankee Doodle went to town, riding on a pony. Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.”
Doodle
was a synonym for a fool or a simpleton, and
macaroni
was what the dandies of the day were called in England. So the song describes a bumpkin—an object of ridicule without style or guile. To Americans, however, muddling through despite a lack of experience or equipment can be a point of pride (see
Scrappy
).

Robert Hendrickson, in
Yankee Talk: A Dictionary of New England Expressions
, describes the way Americans began to claim the term
Yankee
:

It wasn’t until the Battle of Lexington, the first battle of the Revolution in 1775, that New Englanders began applying the nickname
Yankee
to themselves, making it respectable. Soon after, the process of dignification began and the story about the Yankos Indians was invented. In this tale a mythical tribe of Massachusetts Indians are said to have been defeated by a band of valorous New Englanders. The defeated Yankos so admired the bravery of their victorious adversaries that they gave them their name,
Yankos
, which meant Invincibles, and was soon corrupted to “Yankees.”

Another theory is that the word comes from the Cherokee word
eankke
, which means “coward.” How embarrassing. Yet Hendrickson’s anecdote shows the extent to which Americans wanted to take this moniker from their enemies and own it for
themselves. It did help that they won the war. “Yankee Doodle” soon became a triumphal march, and was adopted as the country’s first national anthem. It remains the state song of Connecticut. The plucky spirit of Americans was, for a time, known as “Yankee-doodle-dandeeism,” and America itself nicknamed “Yankeedoodledom.”

But that’s far from the end of the story. Even within America,
Yankee
can still be an insult. During the Civil War era, Confederates used the word to describe Federalists and other Northerners on the opposite side of the conflict. It is said in the South that there are three types of Yankees: A Yankee is someone who was born and still lives in the North. A Damned Yankee is one who visits the South. And a Goddamned Yankee is one who moves there permanently. They may be joking, but the jokes occasionally have an edge that would surprise most foreigners. Even though the official North–South conflict ended a long time ago, antagonism remains. These days the division in American culture is more likely to be described in terms of politics—the red (Republican) states vs. the blue (Democratic) ones. A quick glance at the map confirms that the Yankee states are mostly blue, and the Southern states mostly red.

But regardless of their different political leanings, something Americans have in common is an abiding patriotism that is centered on the flag. All Americans grow up pledging allegiance to the flag each school day. In my elementary school, the pledge was led by the principal over a tinny loudspeaker so that the words all ran together, except for the part about God: “Ipledgeallegiancetotheflagoftheunitedstatesofamerica [audible breath] andtotherepublicforwhichitstands, One Nation [breath] Under GOD, INDIVISIBLE! Withlibertynjusticeferall.” Each classroom had
its own flag, right up front—as does every public building in America.

Americans’ flag-waving tendencies baffle the English, who generally don’t go in for that particular flavor of nationalism. They have no equivalent ritual to the Pledge of Allegiance, though like Americans, they do sing their national anthem, “God Save the Queen,” at official events. England also has a similar North–South cultural divide—but whereas Yankees are considered the cultural elites in America, in England the cultural and political elites are usually based in the south. The north of England is less populous and less wealthy than the south, which is the seat of government power, making policies for the country as a whole. This can lead to resentment, especially when southern politicians are seen to be out of touch with northern realities. Condescension toward northern accents and cities persists, with southern accents and cities considered “posher” than northern ones. The north has historically been the industrial heart of the country—represented by the “dark satanic mills” in one of England’s most popular hymns, “Jerusalem” (which Americans may remember from the movie
Chariots of Fire
). It seems inevitable that the south would appear overprivileged by comparison, but there isn’t any one word that sums this up in the rest of the country.

The word
Yankee
may represent different things to different people, but if you ask an American to describe an individual who is a Yankee, you will get a cross between the caricature of Uncle Sam and a kind of pilgrim soul, given to aphorisms like:

“The world is your cow. But you have to do the milking.”

“Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves.”

“In New England we have nine months of winter and three months of darned poor sledding.”

The characteristics traditionally ascribed to true Yankees—including shrewdness, industry, economy (with words as well as money), individualism, practicality, ingenuity, dry wit, and stoicism—are qualities that have also been ascribed to the English. Unfortunately these old, good values are in short supply everywhere now. It may be true that Americans who embody these characteristics, who call themselves Yankees as a point of pride, have more in common with old England than they do with the rest of America. Yet I would argue that today’s England has more in common, culturally, with the rest of America than with the England of old. But if that’s too controversial, even the most irascible Yankee might agree with Frances Trollope, who had her own idea—yet another—of what it means to be one:

The Yankee: In acuteness, cautiousness, industry and perseverance, he resembles the Scotch. In habits of frugal neatness, he resembles the Dutch . . . but in frank admission, and superlative admiration of all his own peculiarities, a Yankee is nothing else on earth but
himself.

In which the money-talk taboo buckles under the weight of the recent recession.

N
either Americans nor the English like talking about money. It is a cliché on both sides of the Atlantic that most people, rich or poor, would prefer to talk about their sex lives than the contents of their wallets. Both societies equate money with power, status, prestige, esteem, and self-worth. So it isn’t easy to say the words we say when we don’t have enough:
broke
and
skint
.
Skint
comes from the word
skinned
, meaning flayed, exposed. It is an intense and visceral word, and while it means the same as
broke
, it sounds much harsher.

Americans and the English are raised to believe that talking about money is impolite. But their similar taboos against money talk had very different origins. In England, the money-talk taboo originated with the class system. To the upper class,
whose fortunes consisted of inherited property, there was always a stigma against being “in trade,” or having to work to earn money. One (ideally) already
had
all of one’s money, and if not, one could never be considered a gentleman, no matter how rich. This may sound absurd to us today, but nevertheless it is one reason why most English people of all classes, even now, consider it vulgar to talk about money or show too much interest in it. Everyone keeps up the polite assumption that they all have just enough—to do otherwise would be not only potentially divisive, but immodest, reductive, intrusive, and embarrassing.

Kate Fox, an English anthropologist who has studied her countrymen, takes them to task for this: “It is clear that much of all this English squeamishness about money is sheer hypocrisy. The English are no less naturally ambitious, greedy, selfish or avaricious than any other nation—we just have more and stricter rules requiring us to hide, deny and repress these tendencies . . . The modesty we display is generally false, and our apparent reluctance to emphasize status differences conceals an acute consciousness of these differences.”

This is not new. It was played for laughs by Jane Austen in the early 1800s. You can’t move far in her novels without finding out who has merely “500 a year” and who has been reduced to driving around in a gig rather than a phaeton. It’s taken for granted that money is unequal and that money matters—especially in matchmaking—though the characters who are seen to be openly ambitious rarely win at this game. Austen herself kept careful records of how much money she earned from her writing, and never married. But it’s interesting that in her books, the greatest romantic outcome of all is to marry, for love, someone who also just happens to be rich. This is the case when
Emma Woodhouse marries George Knightley and when Elizabeth Bennet bags Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth’s worry, upon telling her mother, is that Mrs. Bennet’s jubilation will prove embarrassing. This worry is not unfounded. Mrs. Bennet crows:

“Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages you will have! . . . A house in town! Every thing that is charming!” This was enough to prove that her approbation need not be doubted: and Elizabeth, rejoicing that such an effusion was heard only by herself, soon went away. But before she had been three minutes in her own room, her mother followed her.

“My dearest child,” she cried, “I can think of nothing else! Ten thousand a year, and very likely more! ’Tis as good as a Lord.”

This was a sad omen of what her mother’s behavior to the gentleman himself might be; and Elizabeth found that, though in the certain possession of his warmest affection, and secure of her relations’ consent, there was still something to be wished for.

In America, being in trade has never been stigmatized. It is an article of faith that “everyone is in sales!” Americans expect to “always be closing,” whatever their jobs. Being self-made is, if anything, considered more honorable and better than being an heir. The rich worry about their children
not
having to make their own way in the world and try to instill character by other means. (A whole industry has built up around this—wealthy children are sent to summer sailing camps to learn self-reliance, or Outward Bound drops them in the middle of the wilderness to
fend for themselves; some even endure unpaid internships at
Vogue.
) Americans are competitive, so you would think money would be an easy topic of conversation. But it isn’t that simple. It’s actually very difficult to talk about something that you believe reflects your worth. America is a society with less of a social safety net than England, where socialism of any kind (socialized medicine, welfare) is practically equated with communism by some, and resented. The trouble with Americans’ self-sufficient attitude is that it can engender a lack of sympathy with those living in poverty—an estimated 15 percent—mostly through no fault of their own. So as long as we don’t talk about money, we can pretend this inequality is not a problem. The rich want to see themselves as deserving, and the poor don’t want to be looked down on for their bad luck. “Equal opportunity” is a nice ideal, but it doesn’t really reflect reality in America, or in England, today.

Although England and America each have their own measures of poverty, a slightly higher percentage of people—about 20 percent of the population—falls into the category in England. A Channel 4 documentary, called
Benefits Street
, dealt with the problem of long-term unemployment and welfare dependence on James Turner Street in Birmingham, where up to 90 percent of residents receive benefits. It was controversial—condescending to its subjects, who complained they had been misled about the aim of the program. Others have been more successful at putting a sympathetic face to the problem. In 2011, Jack Monroe, on her blog, “A Girl Called Jack,” described her struggle to feed herself and her toddler son on ten pounds per week in a post called “Hunger Hurts”: “Poverty isn’t just having no heating, or not quite enough food, or unplugging your fridge
and turning your hot water off. It’s . . . not cool, and it’s not something that MPs on a salary of £65k a year plus expenses can understand, let alone our PM who states that we’re all in this together. Poverty is the sinking feeling when your small boy finishes his one weetabix and says ‘more mummy, bread and jam please mummy’ as you’re wondering whether to take the TV or the guitar to the pawn shop first, and how to tell him that there is no bread or jam.” Monroe has since become a food columnist for
The
Guardian
and written a cookbook of budget recipes. Having learned home economy the hard way, Monroe is a welcome voice in a country where recipes in bestselling cookbooks tend to call for a couple of teaspoons each of expensive and exotic ingredients.

Since the recession, Americans and the English have relaxed the money-talk taboo. Saving and economizing have become viable topics of conversation. There are still things they won’t talk about: salary, for one. Even among bankers, who talk about other people’s money all day long, there is a strong prohibition on discussions of individual salaries. (This is encouraged by managers, who have a vested interest in their employees’ ignorance of discrepancies in their pay.) House prices were once considered fair game for discussion, but with the mortgage crisis this has changed. Once, complaining about the size of your mortgage was a stealth brag, since what you could borrow was thought to be indicative of your worth. Not anymore. Money may not be anyone’s favorite topic of conversation, but it has taken on a new urgency. People are more likely to speak up about being skint or broke. Maybe because they have realized that they aren’t alone, and that it isn’t something shameful to hide when many of their friends and colleagues are experiencing the same
difficulties. Losing some of their money through little or no fault of their own made a lot of people less likely to think of the poor as lazy or undeserving, and more likely to reexamine their attitudes.

Cuts to England’s welfare program have meant that England, like America, is beginning to develop a network of local food banks. People are taking pride in being able to help their neighbors, even though many feel their government has let them down. The welfare state in England is not what it once was. In his annual address to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at London’s Guildhall in 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron said that only a smaller state and a “bigger and more prosperous private sector” could prompt an economic recovery.

He called for a “fundamental culture change in our country” to champion “that typically British, entrepreneurial, buccaneering spirit . . . that rewards people with the ambition to make things, sell things and create jobs for others up and down the country . . . We need to do more with less. Not just now, but permanently.” He made this speech while wearing a tuxedo and white tie, in front of a room full of similarly clad worthies, who may have been nonplussed by what, at first, sounded suspiciously like an exhortation to go into trade. Luckily, he wasn’t talking about them.