英语词汇yankee peddler的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

Yankee peddler. “The whole race of Yankee Peddlers,” wrote a British observer of American character in 1833, “are prover- bial for dishonesty. They go forth annually in the thousands to lie, cog, cheat, swindle; in short to get possession of their neighbor’s property in any manner it can be done with impu- nity.” In fact, the name “damn Yankee,” coined long before the Civil War, probably came from Yankee peddlers who worked the rural South. Yankee peddlers were known as far away as Europe for their trickery and sharpness, especially for their wooden nutmegs (it took an expert wood carver a full day to make just one in a recent experiment) when these kernals of an evergreen tree cultivated in the Spice Islands sold for less than a penny apiece. But whether carved wooden nutmegs ever existed (no one has yet turned up an authentic one), many country people did believe that Yankee peddlers sold them, along with carved wooden hams painted pink (“Basswood Hams”), carved cigars, and wooden pumpkin seeds. Connecti- cut is still called the Nutmeg State for this reason, and the warning don’t take any wooden nutmegs probably influenced the coining of the still current phrase don’t take any wood- en nickels. An old rhyme went: “There is in Yankeeland / a class of men called tin-peddlers, / A shrewd, sarcastic band / Of busy meddlers.” And an old joke went: “Know how to re- vive a Yankee peddler when he drowns?” “Just turn out his pockets!” But though they were well-versed in chicanery and the Yankee art of giving people “a steer in the wrong direc- tion,” as P. T. Barnum put it, Yankee peddlers helped settle America, carrying the materials of civilization to sparsely in- habited regions. Wherever a man swung an ax in the wilder- ness, an old saying went, a Yankee peddler would show up in the clearing the next day.

词汇	yankee peddler
词源	Yankee peddler. “The whole race of Yankee Peddlers,” wrote a British observer of American character in 1833, “are prover- bial for dishonesty. They go forth annually in the thousands to lie, cog, cheat, swindle; in short to get possession of their neighbor’s property in any manner it can be done with impu- nity.” In fact, the name “damn Yankee,” coined long before the Civil War, probably came from Yankee peddlers who worked the rural South. Yankee peddlers were known as far away as Europe for their trickery and sharpness, especially for their wooden nutmegs (it took an expert wood carver a full day to make just one in a recent experiment) when these kernals of an evergreen tree cultivated in the Spice Islands sold for less than a penny apiece. But whether carved wooden nutmegs ever existed (no one has yet turned up an authentic one), many country people did believe that Yankee peddlers sold them, along with carved wooden hams painted pink (“Basswood Hams”), carved cigars, and wooden pumpkin seeds. Connecti- cut is still called the Nutmeg State for this reason, and the warning don’t take any wooden nutmegs probably influenced the coining of the still current phrase don’t take any wood- en nickels. An old rhyme went: “There is in Yankeeland / a class of men called tin-peddlers, / A shrewd, sarcastic band / Of busy meddlers.” And an old joke went: “Know how to re- vive a Yankee peddler when he drowns?” “Just turn out his pockets!” But though they were well-versed in chicanery and the Yankee art of giving people “a steer in the wrong direc- tion,” as P. T. Barnum put it, Yankee peddlers helped settle America, carrying the materials of civilization to sparsely in- habited regions. Wherever a man swung an ax in the wilder- ness, an old saying went, a Yankee peddler would show up in the clearing the next day.
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