I know this is a funny question, but who are yanks? I'm from the UK and I have never heard the expression?

Question

apart from on Yahoo Answers??
What is it slang for.................

Answer 1

Yankees are actually people from the New England states (Maine, New Hampshire, N. York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut). During some of the struggles with the Brits they were allied with Dutch mercenary soldiers who had a folksong in which words similar to Yankee Doodle appeared; the British put English words to it to make fun of the American rebels. BTW a "doodle" is a numbskull, a silly person, a nitwit.
The term "Yankee" came to mean anyone from the Northern states, during the Civil War.
Yankee Doodle went to London
Riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his hat and called it "macaroni".
Yankee Doodle, doodle day,
Yankee Doodle dandy,
Mind the music and the step and
With the girls be handy.
Yankee Doodle went to town
He wore his striped trousers
He swore he could not see the town
There were too many houses.
(Chorus)
There are many varied verses to this depending on where and when you were taught it.

Answer 2

British slang for Americans. This term traces back to the Revolutionary War and to a well known, at least in the US, song Yankee Doodle. The song as I understand it was originally used by British soldiers to taunt American forces:

Yankee Doodle went to town,
Riding on a pony.
Stuck a feather in his cap,
And called it macaroni.

Yankee Doodle keep it up,
Yankee Doodle dandy.
Mind the music and the step
And with the girls be handy.

Other verses were adopted from time to time. However, the song actually became a rallying point for the colonists, another miscalculation on the part of British forces. The term Yankee itself is believed to have originated from the Native American attempt to pronounce the word English.

Answer 3

Yanks is a slang for referring to the Americans.I am surprised that you live in the Uk and you have never heard the word Yanks.

Answer 4

Yanks nowadays refers to americans in general, however it stem from the American Civil war the North and South, the North were the Yankies (Yanks) and the South was the Confederates.

Try calling a guy from Alabama a yank and he's likely to be insulted!

Answer 5

Anna and Magic One have it right. By the way, after the Brits came up with that song to taunt the Yanks, the Yanks adopted the term for themselves and it no longer was derogatory. Hence the later song "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy."

Answer 6

yanks stand for 2 thing s a baseball team the yankees or the civil war between the north and south yankees and the confederate

Answer 7

can mean folks from America to people from you land or other countries. In America, we in the south refer to people from the northern part of our country as "Yanks or Yankees". It is, as has been pointed out the nickname of one the baseball teams from New York. It was the common collective nickname used by your people for our soldiers in the last century

Answer 8

"Yankees" are primarily a certain social group within New England and the Middle Atlantic states. They are generally of British descent (read "WASP" or White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). Not every American is technically considered a Yankee under this definition, especially Irish Americans.

Answer 9

The Yanks were actually the soldiers that came over here in ww2 from america, mainly used for new yorkers.

Answer 10

Yanks:
Inside the USA, Yanks would be "Yankees", (i.e. those from the North of the USA.)
Outside the USA, Yanks are anyone from the USA (as in Yankee Go Home.)