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George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor (ed. George Hillard), Chapter 7: (search)
nuscripts relating to the history of the country still in existence; of the new plan of a Commission relating to them, just submitted by the Minister of Public Instruction, which Thierry thinks will fail; of the politics of the times; and of the affairs of Canada. He is much skilled in etymology, and thinks our etymologies of the word Yankee are all wrong, and that, having arisen from the collision and jeerings of the Dutch and the English, in New York and New England, it is from the Dutch Jan,—pronounced Yan,— John, with the very common diminutive kee, and doodlen, to quaver; which would make the whole, quavering, or psalmsinging, Jacky, or Johnny. Doodle-sack means bag-pipe. Johnny would refer to John Bull; and if doodlen be made in the present tense, Yankee-doodle would be Johnny that sings Psalms. Hart-kee, my little dear heart, and hundreds of other diminutives, both in endearment and in ridicule, are illustrations of the formation of the word. It amused me not a little,