OFF: Etymology

[Andrew A. Apold]

>On Thu, 6 Jun 1996, Jerry wrote:
>
>> [ OFF: You know that "Yankees" is derived from two very common Dutch names,
>> "Jan" (a bit like John) and "Kees" (comparable to Charles)? ]
>
>Once, a Mexican friend of mine explained to me how the word "gringo" came
>about. :-)

There are dozens of versions how that came to be...

I heard it was from a group of americans (BTW, part of the reason they use
it is that most of Latin America hates it when we call ourselves
"Americans", they hold that everyone in the new world is "American")
traveling through Mexico (probably what is now Texas)  used to sing loudly
the song "Green Grow the Rushes" every night. ( I still hear the song
occasionally at SCA events, and saw it once on Sesame Street with a
numerical theme.  R.E.M. did a variation of it on their "Fables of the
Reconstruction"....)

When referring to someone from the U.S. or Canada, they might say
"Norteamericano", but there's no word easily usable to refer to someone from
the U.S. as "Gringo"....
+-------------------------------------------------------+
Andrew A. Apold, aka                        "I was corrupt before I had power!"
Roger Shrubstaff                                 - Random, upon being accused
Guildmaster of Reeves                          of being corrupted since
Barony of Silverwater                             becoming King....
Kingdom of the Burning Lands                (Roger Zelazny, d. 1995)