Though 'tis found not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age,
Though a stranger alike to the fool and the sage,
Though earth don't contain it, the sun nor the moon.
Though in darkness 'tis absent, and also in noon;
Though 'tis not found in searching the heavens sublime;
Yet by guessing, I think I shall guess it in time.
If disease must possess it, and sickness and pain,
If suspended in air and has long lived in vain,
If in sin you can find it, I will not deny,
As you are freed from it, it must then be I.
How "Yankee Doodle Came to Town."
The Famous Air Had a Checkered Career and Hobnobbed With Some
Queer Lyrics Before a British Surgeon Unwittingly Gave to
the American Patriots a Battle Song.
An original article written for The Scrap Book.
Our oldest national nickname is "Yankee." In the early Colonial days, the Indians stumbling over the pronunciation of the language of the pale-face, called the English "Yenghies." By corruption, "Yenghies" became "Yanghies" and "Yankees." The settlers took the word "Yankees" back again from their copper-skinned neighbors, and they seem to have used it in a slangy way.
As early as 1713 Jonathan Hastings, a farmer of Cambridge, in New England, used the word as a synonym for excellence, saying of anything which he especially admired:
"It is Yankee good"—that is, probably: "It is as good as if English made."
However, it is worthy of note that Jamieson's "Scottish Dictionary" gives a Scottish word, "Yankie," with the definition: "A sharp, clever woman, at the same time including an idea of forwardness."