Today’s Word of the Day is —
macaroni /n
1: pasta made from semolina and shaped in the form of slender tubes. *2: an affected young man : fop
* “He had been a macaroni of the eighteenth century, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars.” – Oscar Wilde, from The Picture of Dorian Gray
Now there’s one I’d never heard before. I’m just wondering how you make it a plural… “Oh, those macaronis can’t even act straight.” Perhaps.
So, what’s the deal with Yankee Doodle calling a feather macaroni?
well he is yankee doodle DANDY. surely there’s a connection.
First, a “doodle” was a simpleton.
The fops, the macaroni, were all gussied up in the bling of their day, and this fool puts a feather in his hat and thinks he’s all that.
How this came to define America I don’t knnow, but they may have gotten it right.
Puttin’ lipstick on a pig …
Hm….except for ziti. That stuff’s straight as an arrow.
The story goes that the song “Yankee Doodle” was sung by the British troops during the Revolutionary War to mock American troops. In return, just to show the British up, Americans embraced it and started singing it. It sort of diffused the insult.
before i lose the page:
[quote]
“As you may have suspected ,the macaroni in the song “Yankee Doodle” is not the familiar food. The feather in Yankee Doodle’s cap apparently makes him a macaroni in the now rare “fop” or “dandy” sense. This sense appears to have originated with a club established in London by a group of young, well-traveled Englishmen in the 1760s. The founders prided themselves on their appearance, sense of style, and manners, and they chose the name Macaroni Club to indicate their worldliness. Because macaroni was, at the time, a new and rather exotic food in England, the name was meant to demonstrate how stylish the club’s members were. The members were themselves called Macaronis, and eventually “macaroni” became synonymous with “dandy” and “fop.””
[/quote]
18th Century “metrosexuals”? (No judgment intended.)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20080704/D91NAS0O1.html