> wallyk wrote:
>
> what
> > are ''yankee yachts'' as mentioned in the song?
> > by the way, ranger rick's comments on ''javex
> bottles on the tide'' will
> be
> > so very useful!
> > so what are these yankee yachts? yachts with lots
> of people from boston?
>
>
--- hell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Aren't "yankees" the "northern" americans, ie. the
> ones who were on
> Lincoln's side in the Civil War (excuse my profound
> ignorance of American
> history here)!
>
You are right, Helen. The Yankees are the northern
states in the civil war context. Yankees are pretty
much the northeastern states I guess - New England and
so on - a *real* Yankee would be able to answer this
one. It really wouldn't include the northwest, since
these weren't even states at the time of the civil war
- they would have been territories or whatever and not
terribly involved in the war or the slavery issue as
such.
> That being the case, I've always assumed the "yankee
> yachts" were yachts
> from the US, owned by rich North-based Americans
> taking a little jaunt up
> the coast, to check out their "poor Canadian
> cousins" - no offence intended
> to my Canadian friends here, I think Joni was very
> tongue-in-cheek when she
> wrote this line.
A lot of Americans do come up north to Canada to spend
the summer. Canadians love to tell these stories
about Americans coming up to Canada in August with
skis and so on, wondering where the igloos are. Funny
thing - I've heard *about* these stories, but I've
never actually seen this for myself, so let's assume
it's apocryphal and a bit of a Canadian joke (let's
make fun of those ignerrant Yanks, eh?)
There are a lot of very rich Americans who own
cottages (ha - cottages? these are frickin' mansions
more like - Just to digress a bit here, is the use of
the word "cottage" to talk about a summer home a
Canadianism, or is this used in the US and Britain and
so on - a lot of people here talking about going "to
the cottage" for the weekend, or for a couple of
weeks. It's always *the* cottage! They used to be
little shacks in the bush somewhere that you'd have to
get to over dirt roads - there was never a toilet in
the place; you'd need ) There are entire lakes in
Ontario and Quebec surrounded by luxury homes with
yachts where the average slob, such as moi, probably
wouldn't even be allowed to go. I'm sure the same
thing happens in BC and that another Canadian in the
west would be able to confirm. People like Goldie
Hawn and Kurt Russell have these HUGE summer homes in
the Muskoka area of Ontario (Lake Rosseau, or
Rousseau, whatever) - the things are the size of
hotels. Of course, there are also a lot of rich
Canadians who own homes in these areas as well. But
Canadians like to blame a lot of our troubles
(pollution and so on) on the "Yankees". It's easier
than blaming a lot of this on ourselves.
Until Ranger Rick mentioned it, i thought everyone
knew what Javex was!
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