Editing Yankee (section)

===In the United States===
The term ''Yankee'' can have many different meanings within the United States that are contextually and geographically dependent. Traditionally, ''Yankee'' was most often used to refer to a New Englander descended from the settlers of the region, thus often suggesting Puritanism and thrifty values.<ref>Bushman, (1967)</ref> By the mid-20th century, some speakers applied the word to any American inhabiting the area north of the [[Mason–Dixon Line]], though usually with a specific focus still on New England. ''New England Yankee'' might be used to differentiate.<ref>David Lauderdale [https://web.archive.org/web/20101226172934/http://www.islandpacket.com/2010/12/23/1489118/a-white-christmas-so-close-but.html A white Christmas – so close, but yet so far]. islandpacket.com (2010-12-23)</ref> However, within New England itself, the term still refers more specifically to old-stock New Englanders of English descent. For example:

{{blockquote|Certainly the Irish have for years complained of Yankee discrimination against them.|William F. Whyte<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Whyte|first1=William F.|author-link=William Foote Whyte|title=Race Conflicts in the North End of Boston|journal=The New England Quarterly|date=December 1939|volume=12|issue=4|pages=623–642|doi=10.2307/360446|jstor=360446}}</ref>}}

{{blockquote|There were no civil rights groups then. Even the Federal Government was controlled by bigoted Yankees and Irish who banded together against the Italian immigrant.|Fred Langone<ref>{{cite book|last1=Langone|first1=Fred|author-link=Frederick C. Langone|title=The North End: Where It All Began|publisher=Post-Gazette, American Independence Edition|location=Boston|date=1994|page=3}}</ref>}}

{{blockquote|The one anomaly of this era was the election of Yankee Republican Leverett Saltonstall as governor in 1938, and even then Saltonstall jokingly attributed his high vote totals in Irish districts to his 'South Boston face'.|Stephen Puleo<ref>{{cite book|last1=Puleo|first1=Stephen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jET-HIcybREC&pg=PA185|page=185|title=The Boston Italians|date=2007|publisher=Beacon Press|location=Boston|isbn=9780807050361}}</ref>}}

In the Southern United States, the term is used in derisive reference to any Northerner, especially one who has migrated to the South and maintains derisive attitudes towards Southerners and the Southern way of life. Alabama lawyer and author Daniel Robinson Hundley describes the Yankee as such in ''Social Relations in Our Southern States'': 
<blockquote>Yankee with all these is looked upon usually as a term of reproach—signifying a shrewd, sharp, chaffering, oily-tongued, soft-sawdering, inquisitive, money-making, money-saving, and money-worshipping individual, who hails from Down East, and who is presumed to have no where else on the Globe a permanent local habitation, however ubiquitous he may be in his travels and pursuits.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hundley|first=Daniel|url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/hundley/hundley.html|title=Social Relations in Our Southern States|year=1860|pages=130}}</ref></blockquote>
Senator [[J. William Fulbright]] of Arkansas pointed out as late as 1966, "The very word 'Yankee' still wakens in Southern minds historical memories of defeat and humiliation, of the [[Atlanta Campaign|burning of Atlanta]] and [[Sherman's March to the Sea]], or of an ancestral farmhouse burned by [[Quantrill's Raiders]]".<ref>Fulbright's statement of March 7, 1966, quoted in Randall Bennett Woods, "Dixie's Dove: J. William Fulbright, The Vietnam War and the American South," ''The Journal of Southern History,'' vol. 60, no. 3 (Aug., 1994), p. 548.</ref> [[Ambrose Bierce]] defines the term in ''[[The Devil's Dictionary]]'' as: "In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)"

[[E. B. White]] humorously draws his own distinctions:

{{poemquote|To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, 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.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/yankee/|title=Yankee|date=2012-11-19|work=National Geographic Society|access-date=2018-09-23|language=en}}</ref>}}

Major League Baseball's [[New York Yankees]] acquired the name from journalists after the team was enfranchised in {{mlby|1903}}, though they were officially known as the Highlanders until {{mlby|1913}}. The regional [[Yankees–Red Sox rivalry]] can make the utterance of the term "Yankee" unwelcome to some fans in New England, especially to the most dedicated Red Sox fans living in the northeastern United States.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/playoffs/2004-10-20-yanks-sox-rivalry_x.htm |title=Red Sox-Yankees is baseball's ultimate rivalry |last1=Bodley |first1=Hal |date=October 20, 2004 |newspaper=USAToday.com }}</ref>

The term ''[[Swamp Yankee]]'' is sometimes used in rural Rhode Island, Connecticut, and southeastern Massachusetts to refer to Protestant farmers of moderate means and their descendants, although it is often regarded as a derogatory term.<ref name=ruth/> Scholars note that the famous Yankee "twang" survives mainly in the hill towns of interior New England, though it is disappearing even there.<ref>Fisher, ''Albion's Seed'' p. 62; Edward Eggleston, ''The Transit of Civilization from England to the U.S. in the Seventeenth Century''. (1901) p. 110; Fleser (1962)</ref>

Mark Twain's 1889 novel ''[[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]]'' popularized the word as a nickname for residents of Connecticut, and Connecticut Air National Guard unit [[103d Airlift Wing]] is nicknamed "The Flying Yankees."