What's a Yankee any way???

OK this is not my thought exactly as a matter of fact it's quote from Elwyn Brooks White.....you know E.B. White.....the author......the guy who wrote Charlotte's Web, and Stuart Little.

Yeah...I didn't know his name was Elwyn either.....hell I didn't know the same guy wrote both books....isn't Google amazing??....but that's a subject for a different day.

Anyway I work with a lot of Brits....I mean a lot....the company I work for is like 98% British....well it's a British company so it should be right??....unlike Britain itself which is only about 20% British at this point...but that too is a subject for a different day.

ANYWAY....as I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself....working with Brits got me to dwelling on the term Yank...or Yankee.

Where did it originate? Why do non-Americans call us all Yankees? Yet in America only northerners are Yankees, or if your from the south, anyone who "ain't" is a Yankee.

So I started looking for answers, I Google'd, I Yahoo'd, I sweetIM search'd, I even Wikipedia'd (Yeah I know..Wikipedia???!).....alas I have come to the conclusion.....no one knows!!! No one!! Oh there are theories and conjectures...some of them are even pretty good, but no one knows!!!

Which brings us back to MR. E.B. White....(if my name was Elwyn I'd probably use my initials too)

During all my "Research" I came across this quote that pretty much sums it all up very nicely and even adds to it a little..I guess if I was a "Connecticut Yankee" I would have known this.

Isn't it Strange that
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.

E.B. White

The unspoken lie.

Why is it harder to know you are loved, than when you don't? The responsibility of people caring for you, the need to not let them down, its so hard a burden to carry. When a man is alone, there is a certain anonymity to his action. Mistakes or lapses of judgment are his alone to carry. If a man uses poor judgment he has to move on with life learn from it and grow stronger, but when a man is loved, or worse yet admired by others, those fallibility's are exponentially magnified. The weight of others caring about you and what you do, can be a burden too great to bear. How does a man balance the need to protect those he loves from the realities of himself. With the knowledge that he is not what they have made him up to be? To shatter the image others have created may cause them pain, but trying to live up to the image is next to impossible for most. Realizing that you are not what others see, is not the problem. Realizing how others see you is. When a man thinks others see him as a failure or worse even, mediocre, it is a saddened existence, but when a man is exalted by his loved ones for his success, his generosity, his compassion, it creates a need to fulfill that fallacy that can drive him beyond his limitations. At times, knowing the right choice is difficult at best, but when the fear of failure is increased by responsibility, it can freeze a mans actions. Sometimes any decision, even the wrong one, is better than none.