Vocab: Yankee

You are probably a Yankee. I know you don't think of yourself that way, but trust me, you are one.

If you aren't from the South, then you are a Yankee. Sure, it usually refers to someone from New England (The North), but if you're from California, or Colorado, or anywhere else, you're just as good. The word gets bandied about less frequently than the concept, but you still hear it.

Clearly, it stems from the Civil War; the defeat of the Confederacy is still bitter on the tongues of Native Southerners. Many view everyone else as a Yankee and in some small way, part of that humiliation, even if they happen to be from California.

Reflecting on this, I realized that I do the same thing. Mentally, I still separate America into California and Not-California, so clearly I have no ground to criticize regional elitism. However, my geographical prejudice only goes so far as to create the groups, I don't have any names for Not-Californians. I need your help, gentle readers, to come up with a term for those folks. We're Californians, what is everyone else?