Yes, very true. Even in the US, the term “farmer” is neutral - it simply describes a person who owns and operates a farm, which is an honorable profession. It can (but does not have to) carry an implication that the average farmer is politically and socially conservative and/or lacking in higher education, though this is fading rapidly as farming has become more difficult. It’s a profession now, like being a doctor or a lawyer. It’s not for everybody, but for those who do it it is respectable.
You are right, the term “peasant” is almost never used to refer to people in the US. We speak all the time about how our ancestors were European peasants who made a new life in America, but they somehow lost their peasant status when they came here. Perhaps there is an implication that “peasant” implies that a person is suffering under a socially oppressive system that does not exist (or that we believe does not exist) in the US.
These jokes are sometimes called “<ethnic>” jokes, with the placeholder implying that the jokes are really universal. This lets you define general or meta-ethnic jokes. “So an <ethnic> walks into a bar…”
Well I used that, because the point of the joke is aways the <X> being stupid in a really obvious way:
One day the <moron> locked his keys in his pickup truck…took him three hours to get is family out. The next day he locked his keys in the house, but fortunately the basement window was open…but it still took him three hours to dig a hole for the ladder.
Interestingly, the word “boor” originally mean farmer or peasant.
The program gives contradictory information. Granny says she’s from Limestone, Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains. The family say they come from the town of Bug Tussle. On the other hand, a proposed title for Petticoat Junction about Jed’s cousin Pearl was Ozark Widow. (Per Wiki)
Interestingly, the term “hick” is from the name Richard (like Dick) and while we have the phrase “every Tom, Dick, and Harry” in the 16th century, the Brits had “Hicke, Hob and Hans” as generic people. So, “hick” is like “rube” in that it derives directly from a proper name.
Calling someone a ‘peasant’ in the UK is a mild insult - the sort of thing one might say to a friend who had been rather slow witted. As in many countries, city folk tend to regard country folk as stupid, and those from the country regard city people as flash and dishonest.
I live in Worcestershire, a largely agricultural county and have been referred to as a ‘carrot cruncher’. More colourfully, visitors to Cornwall are derisively referred to as ‘grockles’ while calling someone a pleb (from plebeian) might be insulting or not, depending on their relative social status.
Interesting. Here “peasant” is a mock insult used as a way to indicate the speaker is a snob. Or that they are mocking snobbery. You know, like how “let them eat cake” is used.
It’s incredibly hilly in SE Wisconsin, but we never used “hillbilly.” “Redneck” was applied to macho cops and teachers, and only to farmers who were also hard-ass toward teenagers (it seems to have been a measure of ones character on how one reacted to dozens of teenagers sneaking a beer keg onto one’s back forty) .
Farmers (and all of them were dairy farmers there) were called “shit-kickers.” Among themselves, they had class distinctions: all the farm kids did chores before coming to school, but the lower-class ones didn’t change their clothes first, just their shoes; and smelled up the place with manure.
German language: The main german noun to denote hick is Hinterwäldler - curiously enough it entered the German language in the 19th century as a calque of ‘backwoodsman’ in German articles and books about the United States.
A term that’s only mildly deregatory (and often used self-depreciatingly) is Landei (egg from the country). People from the country are vom Lande, implying a lack of sophistication.
The term Bauer is the usually neutral term for farmer (official term is Landwirt nowadays), but the adjective bäuerisch is derogatory in the sense of uncouth, unsophisticated.
Wait, you’be just just added another: A city boy as well as a country boy can be a rube, someone who if he isn’t actually a sucker or showing gullibility now, is certainly a mark.
Which I believe is from “marked,” not from someone named “Mark.”
I’m confused. First, antecedents: who’s “we” if not Brits, who are being contrasted with the “Hicke, Hob, and Hans” users (who frankly sound like they would be German).
Also, I think your “yes” to my question as I understood it should be a “no”–I wondered if “hicks” was a rhyme for “sticks,” as in the people from there.
So if you would, revisit the Hicke Hob Hans thing. And on “hick” as a rhyme with “Dick” for a most certainly non-King-like association.
“Reuben” was just a generic name for someone from the countryside, being a common name in rural areas. “Rubes” were just bumpkins. There is a legend that the carny’s “Hey Rube!” call originated from one particular Reuben, but I don’t think that’s likely.
This is probably related to the German “Bauer” and Dutch “boer”. The Dutch word was applied to settlers in South Africa, so it could be an interesting parallel.
In the headline, “Hix Nix Stix Pix” the word “Hix” is a one off nonce for hicks. It means that hicks (hix) don’t like (nix) rual (stix) movies (pix). Country people don’t like movies about country subjects.
I’m sorry, the “we” was Leftpondians. We have an expression here of “every Tom, Dick, and Harry” referring to generic people.
In 16th century Britain, there was a similar idea but the names were Hicke, Hob and Hans.
From the OED entry for hick:
1565 M. Harding in J. Jewel Def. Apol. (1611) 529 Be it that Hicke, Hob, and Hans, of your Sects haue impudently accused him.
No, but they’re completely literal. The closest any of them come to “slang” you wouldn’t get from a brick by brick* translation is the reference to caseríos, which is a regionalism; a brick by brick translation would be more likely to come up with granja.
Pueblerino (ES). De pueblo (ES). De poble (CAT). De caserío, casero (ES) (regional to the areas in and around where Basque is spoken; may be pronounced with sh to give it the accent of someone whose first language is Basque and their Spanish is wobbly). Provinciano (ES). Provincial (CAT).
And yes, saying that someone is de ciudad can very much be an insult as well. It refers to someone who gets tired after walking for a minute, who can’t find his arse in town without a subway map, and/or who defends his theory that any place below X million people is “the arse-end of nowhere” (where X million is the population of his native conurbation) by claiming that said conurbation has “so many theaters and museums” when he hasn’t set foor in one since he was a minor (school trips, you know).
Brick by brick, Spanish slang: a word for word translation in which the first option offered by the dictionary is chosen. For example, calling Private Ryan el privado Ryan (ref. to privacy) instead of el soldado Ryan (the actual equivalent grade).
