...came to town a-riding on a pony, stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni."

"Doodle," as found in old English dictionaries, meant a sorry, trifling fellow; a fool or simpleton. "Dandy," on the other hand, survived also as a description of a gentleman of affected manners, dress, and hairstyle. All taken, "Yankee Doodle" is a comic song and a parody. Indeed, the British made fun of rag-tag American militiamen by playing "Yankee Doodle" even as they headed toward the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

"Yankee Doodle", from "I Hear America Singing". Library of Congress, Performing Arts Reading Room, Patriotic Melodies. Available online at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/patriotism/loc.natlib.ihas.200000025/.

Americans are a perverse people. When someone lobs an insult at us, we may react with anger, but another very old American tradition is to adopt the insult as a title of honor in mockery of the insulter, and cheerfully proceed to clean his clock for him. In the case of the Yankee Doodles, the British learned that the Doodles were more than a match for them. Or, to put it in the words of a late 20th century folk philosopher, "I know you are, but what am I?"

I know a lot of gun owners. Most of the gun owners I know happily refer to themselves and each other as "gun nuts" even though the phrase originated with people against gun ownership. The gun nuts know quite well that they are mostly friendly, affable, helpful and kind people, that is, eccentric, perhaps, but far from insane.

It's the algebra of language: two negatives equals a positive.

Does that clear things up? 8oD