What is the reason behind the name Uncle SAM?
103967
It's just a comic acronym for the government of the UNited States of AMerica ! \n...Since the government is always asking its soldiers to go somewhere, fetch something, or do some of its own (dirty !) work, just as any biological uncle probably would, the 'boys' had coined this nick !
342896
because lincolns enemies thought that the antiwar democrats were dangerous.. like the snake the copperhead\nbut liberty was on the penny at that time so they took to the name and made it their own.\nthey wore pennies like badges
694231
The term "united States of America" was first used officially in the Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776. On November 15, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first of which stated "The Stile [sic] of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'" The name was originally proposed by Thomas Paine.
718003
Your question made me curious enough to do a little searching.  Turns out nobody is sure of where the term "Yankee" actually originated.  During the American Revolution, the Brits called us Yankees as a cut-down, and being the Americans they were, after they kicked the Brits butts, they adopted the term for themselves.  Perverse bunch, aren't we?  Best guess has to do with the Dutch being called Yankees well before our little party in 1776.
461038
You might be referring to what the name actually means.  Most names of NFL teams came from contests, where local fans would submit a name and a reason.\n\nThis particular name was chosen from a schoolteacher in Atlanta, 'Miss Julia Elliott, was selected winner because of her reasons: "The falcon is proud and dignified, with great courage and fight. It never drops prey. It is deadly and has a great sporting tradition."'  This was in 1965.\n\nThey have only recently (1998) made the Super Bowl for the first time, and the general sentiment about them is not that they are a powerhouse team in the NFL.  But they have had vey competitive seasons lately, and they are certainly currently on the way to forging their name amongst the elite teams.\n\nAs far as what they want people to think, I think only that they are fierce competitors with a lot of southern pride.
291247
Some believe it came from the abbreviation of Orrin Kendall biscuits, which soldiers ate during the civil war. Others say OK is short for Aux Cayes, a Haitian port that American sailors praised for its rum. Another legend suggests the word comes from Old Keokuk, a Native American tribal chief who was said to have signed treaties with his initials. \n\nWhat is known is that one of the first instances of OK appearing in print was in the spring of 1839 by the Boston Morning Post: \n\nIt is hardly necessary to say to those who know Mr. Hughes, that his establishment will be found to be 'A. No. One' -- that is, O.K. -- all correct. \n\nSo if OK stands for "all correct," wouldn't it be "AC"? Not exactly, says linguist Erin McKean, who points out that the word was intentionally misspelled. Much like the way people on the Internet shorten or abbreviate words when typing, OK was misspelled on purpose. \n\n"For instance, a lot of kids online spell "cool," "k-e-w-l," says McKean, senior editor for U.S. dictionaries at Oxford Press. "They know how to spell cool, but it just looks cooler to spell it "k-e-w-l." \n\nIt was cool in certain East Coast cities in the mid-19th century to substitute OK for "all correct." McKean says it was common for people of that day to use inside lingo -- shorthand full of puns, purposeful misspellings and abbreviations. For example, they'd use "SP" for "small potatoes," or "TBFTB" for "too big for their britches." \n\nOther abbreviations faded into obscurity, but the word OK stuck around. One of the reasons it weathered time is because it got a boost from then-president Martin Van Buren. \n\nVan Buren, a native of Kinderhook, N.Y., was popularly referred to as "Old Kinderhook" -- OK for short. Van Buren's 1840 reelection campaign became so heated that the word OK was widely used and abused by both sides. \n\nIn fact, to hurt the Democratic Party, an opponent started a rumor that it was former president Andrew Jackson who created OK, as an abbreviation of "all correct." The rumor implied that the rustic Jackson was a poor speller. That explanation for OK wasn't true, either, but it did have staying power. And it helped propel the use of OK even further. \n\nSo much, in fact, that it's used all around the world today. \n\n"To talk about the larger phenomenon as OK spread across the America and given to the world -- that implies that it has multiple origins; that people accept it for a variety of reasons," says Michael Adams, a linguist and an Albright College professor. \n\nAdams says there are words like OK in many other languages. In the West African language of Wolof, "waw kay" means "yes." In Choctaw, "okeh" means "indeed." \n\nWhile there isn't any proof that any of the words gave birth to the American OK, Adams says it's possible that the many non-English phrases helped the English one stick. \n\n"The influence of Choctaw, African American speech, political speech -- all of that came together in a kind of melting pot," Adams says. "There is a sense that the newspaper started it, but all those other influences came together to make OK probably the most popular American English word." \n\nMcKean says because OK has that sense of "jauntiness and belonging," people from all over the globe want a part of it. \n\nFamed journalist H.L. Mencken wrote about it. American soldiers took it to the places they were stationed. It was even taken into space, by astronauts like John Glenn, who excitedly exclaimed as the Friendship 7 launched, that "We're all OK!" \n\n"I'm trying to think what people would have said before OK," McKean questions. "If you had to go through a day without it, could you do it? Are you going to say, "right you are,&quo
582282
Refrain from using names like that for the people of an entire country. There are actually good people in the US who didnt want the war to happen and still protest about it.Blame the government not he citizens
246006
Wikipedia gives a few possibilities about where the name came from.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_horse
334436
Dates back to World War I.  A meat packer by the name of Sam, sorry I forget his full name, was supplying meat to the military.  This was also the same time that the military started placing the abbreviation U.S. on crates of materials instead of spelling out United States as it had done previously.  Somehow, US began to symbolize the meat packer Sam as Uncle Sam, and the name has stuck ever since.
98031
Because they like to use America for their own interest as they have been. It makes me wonder too.
536035
Why in the world does Son of Sam come up in your world?  Anyway, Son of Sam was the name of a serial killer in NYC in the late 1970s - I forget his real name.  The guy used to shoot people making out in cars in lovers' lanes around Brooklyn and maybe Queens.  He claimed his neighbor's dog, named Sam, had told him to kill all these people; of course, he was found to be quite mentally ill when caught. His spree lasted over a summer, and people were terrified. Spike Lee made a movie about the terror of that summer - you might try to find it and watch it.
597353
This question was decisively answered by Columbia University professor Allen Walker Read over 40 years ago.\n\n"OK" was invented as a humorous abbreviation for "oll korrect" in the midst of a popular fad for such abbreviations, which began to appear in Boston newspapers ca. 1838 (then spread across the nation). "OK" first appeared in newsprint in 1839 and was, like many other expressions of the time, very popular.\n\nBut this one outlived them all BECAUSE of "Old Kinderhook", the nickname for U.S. Vice President Martin VanBuren, who was running for President in 1840.\n\n(The name comes from the fact that his hometown was Kinderhook, New York. I don't have the documentation, but I believe "OLD Kinderhook" may have been coined by analogy with then President Andrew Jackson's nickname "Old Hickory." Compare other popular nicknames of that era -- "Young Hickory" [for James K Polk who, like Jackson, came from Tennessee], "Young Hickory of the Granite Hills" [coined for Franklin Pierce's presidential campaign], "Old Rough and Ready" [Zachary Taylor], "Old Fuss and Feathers" [Winfield Scott.. who did not like the name!], "Old Buck" [James Buchanan], and "Old Man Eloquent" [a nickname John Quincy Adams received while serving in the House of Representatives AFTER his Presidency]. As for VanBuren, the standard nicknames for this undersized, masterful politician were"the Little Magician" and "the Red Fox of Kinderhook".)\n\nAt any rate, supporters of "Old Kinderhook" decided to play off the newly popular expression, and formed "OK Clubs" to support him. The widespread use in the political campaign across the country established this abbreviation, which people discovered was rather handy, so it stuck.\n\nSo, two of the common explanations for the term are... 'OK'. The third most common explanation offered -- that Andrew Jackson, not the best of spellers, actually wrote the notation "OK" on papers, intending to mark them as "all correct". This explanation (and others) was the invention of Jackson critics, their response to the VanBuren campaign.
437184
Here follows some theories:\n\nThe exact origin of "say uncle" or "cry uncle," an American invention first appearing in written English around 1918, is unclear, but there are, as usual, some interesting theories. One theory posits that "uncle" is actually a mangled form of the Irish word "anacol," meaning "protection" or "safety," making a demand from an aggressor to "cry uncle" equivalent to the thug demanding that his victim "cry for help" as a signal of surrender. There's no real evidence to support this theory, but there certainly was no lack of recent Irish immigrants in the U.S. around the turn of the century, so it's not entirely implausible.\n\nThe other popular theory about "cry uncle" suggests that the phrase may actually be thousands of years old, and that its origins go all the way back to the Roman Empire. According to this theory, Roman children, when beset by a bully, would be forced to say "Patrue, mi Patruissimo," or "Uncle, my best Uncle," in order to surrender and be freed. As to precisely why Ancient Roman bullies forced their victims to "cry uncle," opinions vary. It may be that the ritual was simply a way of making the victim call out for help from a grownup, thus proving his or her helplessness. Alternatively, it may have started as a way of forcing the victim to grant the bully a title of respect -- in Roman times, your father's brother was accorded nearly the same power and status as your father. The form of "uncle" used in the Latin phrase ("patrue") tends to support this theory, inasmuch as it specifically denoted your paternal uncle, as opposed to the brother of your mother ("avunculus"), who occupied a somewhat lower rung in patrilineal Roman society.
192914
Because our country's whole name is "The United States of AMERICA"  and also because we are the dominating force in all of the Americas.\n\nBut not everyone calls it "America" outside of the US.  It is often frequently called "The States."\n\nMost of the time we're just called "Those Terrorists" lol
480078
To me, it signifies racism. It signifies ongoing support of the Southern Confederacy and the way of life for which they chose to fight, that of plantations living off the backs of slaves. It feels to me like the person flying it is sending the message that they still support the south (in reference to the Civil War, not just fond feelings of home...)and wish that the south would have won the war so that slavery could continue.  It signifies a smoldering resentment that AfroAmericans are now free to mingle in society. I'm sure plenty others will disagree, but that's what it signifies to me. By the way, I am white, if that affects how you interpret my response.
94496
"Common folklore holds that his origins trace back to soldiers stationed in upstate New York, who would receive barrels of meat stamped with the initials U.S. The soldiers jokingly referred to it as the initials of the meat supplier, Uncle Samuel Wilson, of Troy, New York."
68163
because thats the name they chose. thats like asking why do the have new balance shoes and not old balance.\n\nnew navy doesnt roll of the tounge now does it?