rebel yell and yeehaw

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Jan 21 22:06:54 UTC 2012


On Jan 21, 2012, at 3:45 PM, Ronald Butters wrote:

> 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 full relevant passage was

"Yeehah!" is the Southernism that was identified as the "Rebel Yell"
which was in use since before the Civil War and was heard during the
Civil War

I think the observation was that while the "Yeehah!" yell may have itself been in use before the Civil War, it wasn't *called* the Rebel Yell until the Civil War.

LH

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