rebel yell and yeehaw

[Jonathan Lighter]

The issue isn't whether Pvt. John "Yeehaw" Smith or someone else, less
imaginary, yelled "Yeehaw!" throughout the Civil War. We have no
evidence he did.

The issue is whether all/most/many/ a pretty fair number of
Confederate soldiers realized a/the "rebel yell" by screaming
"Yeehaw!"

There is no evidence at all for that, even if American folklore of the
past thirty or forty years demands otherwise.

If "yeehaw!" was stereotypically a donkey sound like "heehaw!" in the
19th C., the likelihood becomes even slimmer.

JL

On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 3:45 PM, Ronald Butters <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ronald Butters <ronbutters at AOL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: rebel yell and yeehaw
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Huh? what else does it mean to say, as he did,
>
>> "Rebel Yell"
>> which was in use since before the Civil War and was heard during the
>> Civil War
>
> On Jan 21, 2012, at 10:10 AM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>
>> He never said it was identified as a "rebel yell" before the Civil War.
>> DanG
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org