I only began to twig that I'd misunderstood when 
gillo commented yesterday to the effect that "Yank" and "Yankee" mean different things. No one else had caught my conflation of the two. I certainly had no reason to think I was conflating. Until today, I presumed that Yank was slang, short for Yankee, interchangable except for level of formality, just like Brit and British.
It took a full explanation today fromfjm to learn otherwise. "Yank" is, apparently, a specific term used in the UK to refer to a specific kind of American: rich, assertive, ignorant. It's an insult, not just a geographic descriptor. And now I can't think as to whether or not Americans ever use "Yank". Do we? Do we use it interchangably with Yankee, or do we not use it at all? I no longer know.
Since I'm now feeling cautious, is there a similar meaning divide between "Brit" and "British" when it comes to human beings?
gillo commented yesterday to the effect that "Yank" and "Yankee" mean different things. No one else had caught my conflation of the two. I certainly had no reason to think I was conflating. Until today, I presumed that Yank was slang, short for Yankee, interchangable except for level of formality, just like Brit and British.It took a full explanation today from
fjm to learn otherwise. "Yank" is, apparently, a specific term used in the UK to refer to a specific kind of American: rich, assertive, ignorant. It's an insult, not just a geographic descriptor. And now I can't think as to whether or not Americans ever use "Yank". Do we? Do we use it interchangably with Yankee, or do we not use it at all? I no longer know.Since I'm now feeling cautious, is there a similar meaning divide between "Brit" and "British" when it comes to human beings?
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I hope no one calls me a Yankee, as I'm from California!
As for Brit/British... 'Brit' is just more slang. You might get posh people objecting to being called 'Brits', I guess (never heard it done, but I can imagine it) but it'd be because they'd be being snobbish about shortening words, not because it only refers to us commoners ;-p
Edited at 2008-04-25 09:47 pm (UTC)
But then, I'm a bloody foreigner of different ilk.
'Yank' and 'Brit' used by a non-Yank or non-Brit respectively sometimes sound mildly patronising or pejorative. This is not always the case, as they can just be intended as affectionate or informal terms. But they do frequently seem to accompany grumbling generalisations about the nationalities in question (things like "Those Yank tourists all talk too loudly" or "You Brits don't have any good pizza").
I avoid both unless I know my audience well. You are allowed to call me a Brit, though.
In the UK, "Yankee" is very rarely used; "Yank" has a slightly derogatory connotation (as in "Yanks go home", occasionally to be seen painted on walls in my childhood, and as in "over-paid, over-sexed and over here")
It is of course complicated by the fact that relatively few people in these islands think of themselves as either - we're English, Welsh, Scots or Irish (or even Manx) or some combination of the above.