Why did Europeans call American soldiers Yanks in World War 1?
The British do not get away scot-free however. Since the 2nd World War Americans have called the British ‘Limeys’ because of the lime juice that their sailors drank whilst at sea to prevent scurvy. I have an original limejuice bottle that belonged to my father when he was in the Merchant Navy in WW2, now with a model of his WW2 ship in it. The nickname that is now more often used by the Americans is he ‘Brits’ (for obvious reasons – a shortening of ‘British’, and ‘Limey’ tends to be used more by older generations.
