Antedating of "Yankee Doodle"

[Jonathan Lighter]

The received scholarly wisdom is that the song was written by the British Army surgeon Dr. Richard Schackburg in 1755, so earlier exx. are theoretically possible.

  JL

Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Fred Shapiro
Subject: Antedating of "Yankee Doodle"
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Yankee Doodle (OED 1768)

1767 Andrew Barton _The Disappointment_ 22 (Evans Digital Edition) AIR
IV. Yankee Doodle. _O! how awful shall I be, When I get de money, I will
bring it all to dee; O! my diddling honey._ [_Exit, singing the chorus,_
yankee doodle, &c.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press,
Yale Law School forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com
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