# yellow bellies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [July 10, 2003, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554 "2003-07-10T20:49:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![signalcamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@signalcamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/signalcamp)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/1 "2003-07-10T20:49:54Z")
The source of meaning of yellow for cowardice is from April 1775 on the bridge in Lincoln between Lexington Concord outside Boston. The yellow vested redcoats, the 10th Lincolnshire Foot, had been ordered to check terrorist activity. Strung in a line in woods with failing light, the unsupported regiment was forced to turn away while the Americans played guerrilla. The 10th Foot had yellow vests because locals were famous for dying of yellow fever and at home were known as “Lincolnshire Yellowbellies”. The tragic irony embedded in this first skirmish of the American War of Independence almost stops the blood. Boston and environs was founded by Lincolnshire people, yet as they fired upon other through the night in The Wilderness, (not the Civil War battle of that name,) probably none realized the internicene nature of their efforts and for their trouble achieved a dirty ill-conceived yellow. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/2 "2003-07-10T21:19:47Z")
Link to the article referenced. [What’s the origin of “yellow-bellied”?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/myellowbellied.html) ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/3 "2003-07-11T02:42:46Z")
So, it didn’t fly over at [Dialectical Aestheticism](http://journal.dialecticalaestheticism.net/index.php?s=lincolnshire) so now we have to pay the price? You got a cite for your assertions?(assuming you actually are asserting something). ---
**Author:** ![signalcamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@signalcamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/signalcamp)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/4 "2003-07-11T04:51:33Z")
Thank you, but what -fly, price? and no citation or assertion. Help OK. ---
**Author:** ![signalcamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@signalcamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/signalcamp)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/5 "2003-07-11T23:31:57Z")
Proto-Romantic Captain John Smith had Pochohantas at home on the farm near Alford in the Lincolnshire Wolds in Lincs., England. Farmer Postmaster Captain Brewster and his sixteen-year-old assistant William Bradford and their congregation left the saltmarsh Isle of Axholme and Scrooby by Gainsborough by river and canal, under The Glory Hole in Lincoln city, down a different river, by Libertye and Heighington there, to Boston, betrayal and a night in jail; back to Gainsborough while quickly out again about Immingham to Holland , Southampton Hampshire, Plymouth Devonshire to set up again at Plymouth Massachusetts. Arabella Clinton and the sisters, John Adams, Anne Hutchinson, Coddington, Saltonstall and the beautiful Fiennes were all with Rev. John Cotton in St. Botolph in Boston, Lincs., before founding new Boston at a site in use by hermitizing lawyer Dr. Blackstone, who had lots of fresh water, friendly relations with locals and was an old friend from the County creating Common and comity. Smith is known to have advised the Bay Colony friends with their list, (on view in Lincoln Cathedral’s Wren library) of essential items. All difficult ‘yellowbellies’ whose great-grand children held against an conscripted, cousinful Tenth Lincolnshire Foot one hundred fifty years later at the Bridge in Lincoln, Mass. Was General William Lincoln there? All brave people, the opposite of cowardice, working the huge dialectical aesthetic as they can. The Redcoats’ yellow bellies must have looked like parrots in the northern woods. Grandson Master Abraham "four score and ten ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/6 "2003-07-12T00:03:05Z")
**Moderator’s Note:** The column in question is actually one of our Staff Reports, so I’ll move this to the [Comments on Staff Reports](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=6) forum. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/7 "2003-07-14T15:23:42Z")
😕 This thread _is_ in English, yes? ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/8 "2003-07-14T23:45:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jeff Olsen \* > \*\*😕 > This thread _is_ in English, yes? \*\* Sure I am not. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/9 "2003-07-15T03:36:18Z")
_All your yellow bellies are belong to us_. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Cobweb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7c8e57/32.png) [@Dr.Cobweb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Cobweb)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/10 "2003-07-15T15:55:17Z")
Semblance of lingo-meaning order belies the unbearable yellowness of belly. ---
**Author:** ![signalcamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@signalcamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/signalcamp)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/11 "2003-07-15T16:06:10Z")
quote: All your yellow bellies are belong to us. Thanks samclem for creating a new notion of American yellowbellies from the Three Jewels of Lincolnshire yellowbellies of Captain John, the Mayflower, and Massachusetts Bay Colony. Naturally this is neither a race or a sect; they felt that civil and religious liberty were foundation for a community life. Is this a dialectical materialism or a dialectical aestheticism? ---
**Author:** ![signalcamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@signalcamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/signalcamp)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/12 "2003-07-15T16:14:51Z")
quote: This thread is in English, yes? Is it always flattering to be asked about one’s language, like, have a good day or have you eaten, yo’? I guess it is Atlantic English. Preference is early English between Chaucer and Union, though one can perhaps have more fun with Chinlish, but it is equally hard and appears to work against the grain of modern western English usage. Idea boxes butting about as if one were a writing-engineer as opposed to the rant style that is English. This form turns sometimes a turgid mess. Apologies for any confusion. ---
**Author:** ![signalcamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@signalcamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/signalcamp)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/13 "2003-07-15T17:08:52Z")
Staff report quote: Yellow and yellow-bellied haven’t always had a negative connotation. An earlier and completely different use of “yellow-bellies” apparently first arose in England as a humorous reference to residents of Lincolnshire, without the connotation of cowardly, as far as I can tell. The regimental flag had a yellow background, and frogs found in the fens were in fact yellow-bellied, so we find the term in print around 1796. Well in April 1775 commanding general Gates is back at Boston bolloxed with dark sugars on the knee, in goblet and mind, never heard the shot fired around the world and is able to figure the transformation only later the next evening. The Lincolnshire Tenth Foot meanwhile are in a thin line into the wilderness, hungry and without ordinance reserve or baggage. If this is where yellow for cowardice comes from, Signalcamp proposes yellow for cowardice is entirely unwarranted. How many of the Tenth Foot that night deserted to their cousins and didn’t make it back to Boston? Pschi. A yellow belly there; faintest near lemon sqare, pale in the reflecting moon, dozen meters left, not moved while an hour, say ssh. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/14 "2003-07-15T21:18:41Z")
_Whoosh, y’all_ Apparently, Jas. Joyce lives. Y’know, **signalcamp** , you might fit in better at [http://www.livejournal.com/community/freakwrite](http://www.livejournal.com/community/freakwrite) ---
**Author:** ![signalcamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@signalcamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/signalcamp)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/15 "2003-07-15T21:28:49Z")
East the noise there ssh, that’s not a lemon but a right earth yellow, reflecting from transparency it’s way round and only one, the button is a navel! As brave rebels and the frozen or sleeping Brittish yellowbelly in 1775, this is 2003, a pregnant female in the People’s Republic of China, hiding, crossing cutting currents heading upstream west. see Goddess of Democracy on ‘Comments on Cecil’s Columns.’ ---
**Author:** ![signalcamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@signalcamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/signalcamp)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/16 "2003-07-15T21:37:09Z")
East the noise there ssh, that’s not a lemon but a right earth yellow, reflecting from transparency it’s way round and only one, the button is a navel! As brave rebels and the frozen or sleeping Brittish yellowbelly in 1775, this is 2003, a pregnant female in the People’s Republic of China, hiding, crossing cutting currents heading upstream west. see Goddess of Democracy on ‘Comments on Cecil’s Columns.’ ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2003, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/17 "2003-07-20T11:16:08Z")
[Brass cupcakes are yellow.](http://www.maakies.com/archive/mb42t.gif) 😃 [sub]Never pass up a Maakies reference.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2003, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yellow-bellies/187554/18 "2003-07-20T23:33:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Well in April 1775 commanding general Gates is back at Boston bolloxed with dark sugars on the knee, in goblet and mind, never heard the shot fired around the world and is able to figure the transformation only later the next evening. The Lincolnshire Tenth Foot meanwhile are in a thin line into the wilderness, hungry and without ordinance reserve or baggage. Signalcamp proposes yellow for cowardice is entirely unwarranted. How many of the Tenth Foot that night deserted to their cousins and didn’t make it back to Boston? Observation from a totally humorless old fart. I may have missed it, but WHERE did someone suggest that "If this is where yellow for cowardice comes from, " (referring to the 1775 battle)? I have yet to see something from that time to indicate that “yelow-belly” indicated cowardice. It only appears in print much later. If I’m being “whooshed”, then I would suggest to the “whoosher” that he take it to another forumn. On another board, perhaps, as has been suggested.