Is Yankee a derogatory term?

Question

should one be offended if a southern person refers to you as a yankee?

Answer 1

we use yankee here in spain

Answer 2

It's not offensive to me. I don't care what meaning southerners put to it. They lost the war and they should move on.  

Answer 3

It's offensive only if you allow yourself to be offended by it.  It's not necessarily a derogatory term.

I'm a southerner, and a yankee is someone not from the south.  They're trying to offend you if you're called a "d**n Yankee".

Answer 4

Like other such words, it largely depends on who says it and in what context.

Answer 5

It depends on how it is said. If it is said angrily, and especially if the expression is "d**n yankee", it can be despective. It is also used as an affectionately teasing epithet. Context would determine the meaning. But don't get offended unless the context is baseball. The New York Yankees team is famous for its arrogance.

Answer 6

  In the southern US it is usually intended that way. But it is not necessarily derogatory as in  YANKEE magazine. THe same goes with "cracker" .Amoung certain white ppl in the south it is just a designation for a white southerner. In Black parlance , it is quite another thing ,equivalent to "h****y"

Answer 7

Not really. Nobody would get mad. There is a team and a song about it. It can come off a little rude depending on context but not really. Yankee is to the North as Dixie is to the South. I don't think southerners would get made to be labeled Dixies. There is a band named after that too (Dixie Chicks).

Answer 8

Yankee is an actual indigenous tribe from North America and it's refered to call Americans, by foreigners the same way some people call Aztecs to the mexicans and incas to the peruvians.

Answer 9

I don't think so.  Some people are offended at the word h**l and others aren't, so there's no real answer to this question.  The English refer to us very often as Yankees or Yanks.  So much so that it's become another word for American.  Not meant to be bad, just how they talk.

In the Civil war, the people in the North were called Yankees.  The south would sneer the word at them, call them "d**n Yankees", but since the North won the war, I don't think they still take offense.

Answer 10

Yes, it's derogatory

but, I've heard foreigners call Americans yankees, even if you aren't from the north

But either way, it is offensive.

Answer 11

Yankee is an offensive term only if referring to a baseball team/player on said team from New York ... in which case ... INCREDIBLY offensive.