a popular American song dating from the eighteenth century. The early settlers of New York were Dutch, and the Dutch name for Johnny is Janke, pronounced Yankee. Doodle meant "simpleton" in seventeenth-century English. The song was first sung during the AmericanRevolutionary War (1775 - 1781) by the British troops to poke fun at the strange ways of the Americans (Yankees). The first verse is:/"Yankee Doodle went to town a-riding on a pony,/Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni." —3rd South African unpublished Appr GLS (19.3.92)