Is frugality a Yankee (vs Southern) value?
I use the term Yankee in a way that people use it in Vermont, not the way a Southerner would use it (to mean a generic northerner) or a foreigner would use it (to mean all Americans). In Vermont, someone from New York, for example, is not a Yankee (despite the baseball team).
When people say Yankee in Vermont, they generally think of someone rural, taciturn and frugal. There are few true Yankees left, but my grandparents fit the mold. A large portion of the furniture in my mom's house was built by her father or his father. My grandfather (who had a fairly high income), repaired everything. My grandmother patched the elbows of his suit coats and darned our socks. But they were very generous with their grandkids. Frugal, but not stingy.
Moving to California was a bit of a shocker. I couldn't believe how many high-priced cars there were on the road.
The American author E. B. White came up with a funny summary of how to keep the term straight. It shows how, in the end, who is and isn't a Yankee is all about the geographic perspective:
To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/yankee/Or, to tell it as a joke... A guy from Texas is driving down a country road in Vermont and sees a farmer and stops to talk. He asks him "How big is your spread?" The farmer points out the borders following hilltop and stone fence.
The Texan says, "On my ranch, if I start at my house and get in my pickup at dawn and drive east until sunset, I'm at the northeast corner. I get up the next morning and drive south until sunset, I'm at the southeast corner. I get up the next morning and drive west, the next morning and drive north all day and I'm back ag my house."
The farmer looks at him for a second and says, "Yup, I had a truck like that once."
And that is what I think of as a Yankee.
