M&D 317

[Matthew P Wiener]

David Casseres wrote:
>Brian D. McCary sez

>>	When presented with the Watch by emerson, Dixon asks "And upon the hour
>>it sings 'Yankee Doodle'?"  My recollection is that Yankee Doodle was a
>>parody song made up by the British during the Rebellion, to make fun of
>>the revolutionaries.  That being so, it shouldn't have been around in
>>1763 (no revolutionaries to make fun of) so how would Dixon have heard
>>about it?

>I believe the song is older than that, and was taken up by the Redcoats
>rather than made by them.

Quoting my handy dandy William Rose Benet THE READER'S ENCYCLOPEDIA (2nd
edition):

	Yankee Doodle. A quasi-national song of the U.S. Both the tune
	and several stanzas of *Yankee Doodle* were current early in
	the British colonies; the catchy tune seems to have inspired
	innumerable verses. The origin of the tune is disputed, and
	the words have traditionally been ascribed to Dr Shuckburgh, a
	British Army surgeon. The song seems to have been deliberately
	used by the British to provoke the American troops during the
	Revolution; the Americans, however, adopted the song as their
	own and created an image of the American in a rustic mold. The
	song was first printed in 1795.

I would guess that this means everybody is correct, and Dixon is actually
referring to some earlier version.  Of course, the British could make fun
of colonists "stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni" without
waiting for the urgency of war.

Looking up further, I find:

	macaroni (It., maccher'one). A coxcomb. The word is derived from
	the Macaroni Club, instituted in London about 1760 by a set of
	flashy men who had traveled in Italy, and introduced at Almack's
	subscription table the new-fashioned Italian food, *macaroni*.
	The macaronis were the most exquisite fops that ever disgraced
	the name of man; vicious, insolent, fond of gambling, drinking,
	and dueling, they were (c.1773) the curse of Vauxhill Gardens.
--
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba at sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)    If Apple owned
 NBC, they would sue Nike for comedy-interface copyright violation.