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Cockades



Regarding, Josh's question on "What's a Cockade anyway" I will relate the 
story I heard several years ago.  During the revolutionary war the British 
soldiers would wear fancy decorations on their hats that were called cockades.
 The slang expression used for them was macaroni.  That's how the woodpecker 
got the name red-cockaded.  I guess they thought the red spot on the sides of 
their heads looked like the hat decorations. The American soldiers didn't have 
the money or the organization to have the fancy decorations on their hats, so 
they would use animal tails, feathers, and other stuff, thus the phrase from 
Yankee Doodle "stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni."  Anyway, 
that's what I heard.  I have no idea whether it's really true, but I liked the 
story.
Marilyn Westphal
Hendersonville, NC
mjwestphal@unca.edu