On Fri, 23 Sep 1994, Duncan Bryan wrote:
> PS. Why do some Americans call British people Limeys?
Well, my good man, I dare say we have to call them *something*...
OK, I'll be serious. The truth is this. In days of yore, after several
months aboard ship, british sailors would notice the absence of the
opposite sex. They would say, "Oh, I say, old chap, there are no women
aboard," or words to that effect. After several months more, many of the
men would become frustrated as it gradually dawned on them that something
was missing from their lives. So the ships began to include limes in
their stores. Many of the men came to prefer limes, and when they did
eventually get shore leave, they would drink a mixture of lime seltzer and
beer known as a shandy, instead of getting drunk and getting laid as the
american sailors were wont to do. Naturally, the british sailors, and
eventually the british in general, came to be known as limeys. But the
term was always applied with affection, except possibly during the
American Revolutionary War, when the americans were rather cross with the
british.
Ray Gibbons Dept. of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Univ. of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
gibbons@northpole.med.uvm.edu (802) 656-8910
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