# US Southerners/Kentuckians: What's a "holler?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 22, 2018, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569 "2018-06-22T13:46:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/61 "2018-06-23T14:22:04Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > I’ve also heard such places called a “mailbox community” because so many of the residents just scrape by on a disability check from the government in their mailbox once a month and very few people there have jobs. Wait, one can get a disability check just for being poor? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Temporary\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Temporary\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Temporary_Name)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/62 "2018-06-23T14:27:45Z")
I have no new information to add, but another point of reference. In Chuck Yeager’s autobiography, he mentions the humble beginnings of his childhood and the holler his granddad lived in that “was so remote they had to pipe in sunlight”. Later when Chuck had joined the service and been trained as a pilot, he tried to fly over the holler to show off, but it was so narrow and remote he had to roll and yaw the aircraft so it appeared from the ground to have no wings. In another part of the book, his wife Glennis speaks of meeting Chuck for the first time and being unable to understand him because of his backward, archaic Appellation drawl. She claimed by the time he did the AC/Delco commercials he had been trained to speak ‘proper English’ by the Air Force because as the most famous test pilot alive he was asked for interviews which made the whole Air Force command shutter in horror. Even before that, Thom Wolfe mentions the country drawl that all pilots seemed to have since the war (even ones from New Jersey) that was actually an affectation and tribute to their living hero, that good ol’ boy Chuck. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/63 "2018-06-23T14:50:39Z")
WV has the New River Gorge with a bridge 876 feet over the river [New River Gorge Bridge - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_River_Gorge_Bridge) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/64 "2018-06-23T15:00:41Z")
Well, here’s a (named) Gorge in a Valley: [Bull Valley Gorge.](http://utahadvjournal.com/index.php/a-death-in-bull-valley-gorge), which is described accurately as a “slot.” ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/65 "2018-06-23T15:04:13Z")
So is “hick” a real geographical/physical word originally? “Sticks” – (“stix hix,” famously) – is a terrain (woods), like clod, as we’ve grouped these things above. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/66 "2018-06-23T15:11:58Z")
[/hijack] [QUOTE=Temporary Name;21041120 …[snip on nice Chuck Yeager info] Even before that, Thom Wolfe mentions the country drawl that all pilots seemed to have since the war (even ones from New Jersey) that was actually an affectation and tribute to their living hero, that good ol’ boy Chuck. [/QUOTE] I never knew that–and I most notice it in British films, where a voice from the/any cockpit is invariably performed by a not-the-best actor, where invariably it’s that calm good 'ole boy voice, a little too much and revealing the tiny British accent. Of course, Major Kong in Strangelove was the best, over-the-top, and “real” version of that trope. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/67 "2018-06-23T15:14:24Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Wait, one can get a disability check just for being poor? 😕 Welfare check of any sort, I’m sure he meant. Which gives much to think about pre-FDR rural economy. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/68 "2018-06-23T15:47:18Z")
> [@ThisSpaceForRent](#): > > … > If’n ya doezn’t know yer holler from yer gully or’n yer swale … 😕 “swale?” ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/69 "2018-06-23T16:10:46Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > So is “hick” a real geographical/physical word originally? “Sticks” – (“stix hix,” famously) – is a terrain (woods), like clod, as we’ve grouped these things above. No, a hick originally referred to anyone from the country, not just mountain people. It comes from a nickname for Richard. In the 1600s, a common phrase was Hick, Hob and Hans. This was similar to how we would say Tom, Dick and Harry. Hick, Hob and Hans was usually used to refer to an unsophisticated mob. So you might say something akin to, “I’m not going to buy the Tower of London from you, Mr. Barnum. This isn’t some Hick, Hob or Hans you’re talking to.” Over time it became shortened to just hick and became exclusively associated with the country. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/70 "2018-06-23T16:13:00Z")
Oh jeez, I just now got a pun I’ve been exposed to since birth. The Snuffy Smith comic strip is set in Hooten Holler. I knew a holler was a hollow - a valley in the Appalachian Mountains. But Bob just mentioned that holler also means yell. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/71 "2018-06-23T17:03:39Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > 😕 “swale?” A swale is a gentle depression. Originates from England/Scotland, traced back to Old Norse _svalr_, meaning “cool”. In the old country, describes a low, hollow place, usually boggy. In America, it’s become more widely applied to mean just any gentle depression between higher ground, such as in the plains. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/72 "2018-06-23T17:08:30Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > Appalachia does have canyons, but no gullies or gulches. Canyons are steep sided narrow river valleys where the mountain goes straight into the river with no flood plain. They differ from hollows in that they are larger and have essentially zero settlement due to the harsh topography. Cheat Canyon and Blackwater Canyon are examples. We also have gorges which are similar to canyons and narrows which refer to the river in a canyon that moves faster due to a narrowing of the Canyon. You can google map wv-72 north of Rowlesburg to see Cheat Narrows and Cheat Canyon has no road, but extends between Albright and Cheat Lake. I would have to point out that any use of “Canyon” in Appalachia is almost certainly a retroactive application of that term to the geological feature. For example, Cheat Canyon is also known as the Cheat River Gorge, a name that most probably predates the use of Canyon. This is because “Canyon”, the American-English derivative of _cañon_, only goes back to the mid-1800s, and the Appalachia topography will have had descriptive names much earlier than that. Note that the New River still runs through the New River Gorge, not the New River Canyon, for example. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/73 "2018-06-23T17:15:07Z")
The economics of living in a holler are quite limited. Nearby jobs were typically things like coal mining (which has been dying for decades), a bit of timber work, and of course moonshining. These remote areas are poor because there isn’t a lot of stuff to build an economy on. In terms of farming, the US has weird laws regarding who can grow tobacco based on whether that plot of land grew tobacco back in the 1930s. So a guy could sort of make a living growing a couple acres of tobacco due to the government support. (Some of which has now ended.) A family in a holler didn’t need the standard 40 acres to get by. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/74 "2018-06-23T19:22:29Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > 😕 “swale?” Tsk, tsk. Ya not from aroun’ here, are ya, boy? That there swale is sum o the boggiest land ya ev’r seen. Jus’ a swamp, an’ good for nuthin’. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/75 "2018-06-23T19:41:14Z")
I betch’a fewer people here know what “swale” means than the number who know “holler.” Am I correct? \* Show of hands, please \* That is, is “swale” even more local to…Kentucky?..“Appalachia?” About “hick,” the I always knew and heard it as a personal noun. A Texas friend just told me that they used to say "He’s from Hicksville’’–meaning a bumpkin from Butt Fuck, AnyState. Which is pretty funny because to me _he_ came from Butt Fuck, TX. Also, in NYC, or “the Tri-State area,” as they say, Hicksville is a perfectly legitimate city on Long Island, and nobody would understand it at all. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/76 "2018-06-23T19:49:18Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > No, a hick originally referred to anyone from the country, not just mountain people. It comes from a nickname for Richard. In the 1600s, a common phrase was Hick, Hob and Hans. This was similar to how we would say Tom, Dick and Harry. Hick, Hob and Hans was usually used to refer to an unsophisticated mob. So you might say something akin to, “I’m not going to buy the Tower of London from you, Mr. Barnum. This isn’t some Hick, Hob or Hans you’re talking to.” Over time it became shortened to just hick and became exclusively associated with the country. Cool. Googled H,H, and H and Shakespeare (why not?) and found [this](https://www.deseretnews.com/article/514783/IS-THAT-HICK-FROM-THE-STICKS-NO-HE-CAME-FROM-RICHARD.html): The noun “hick” derives from the nickname “Hick,” a shortened form of “Richard.” … in the Middle Ages “Hick” was just one of many rhyming nicknames that were established in popular use…“Hob” for “Robert” (along with “Dob” and “Bob” and “Rob”) and “Hodge” for “Roger.” “Hob” survives now only as the name for a goblin (“hobgoblin”), while “hodge” ended up as a British term for a farm laborer. [\*\*LB: \*\*never heard of this one either.] Up to the 17th century, shortened names in general, in certain contexts, were used with a touch of derision, somewhat in the way we employ “Tom, Dick and Harry” today. One religious polemicist used “Hick, Hob and Hans” (“Hans” being short for “Johannes”) in 1565 to generalize members of an opposing sect. Shakes-peare, in his play “Coriolanus,” has the hero referring to the ordinary Roman citizens for whom he feels nothing but contempt as “Hob and Dick.” Even much earlier, in the 14th century, we see Robert Bruce of Scotland referred to in a political ditty as “King Hob” and Richard II of England addressed as “Hick Heavyhead” in a poem criticizing his misrule. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/77 "2018-06-23T19:58:33Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > A swale is a gentle depression. Originates from England/Scotland, traced back to Old Norse _svalr_, meaning “cool”. In the old country, describes a low, hollow place, usually boggy. In America, it’s become more widely applied to mean just any gentle depression between higher ground, such as in the plains. Ready?..a twofer from OED! swale, n.3 local. (sweɪl) Also 6 Sc. swaill, swayll, 9 swail, Sc. swyle. [Origin unknown. Prob. conveyed to America from the eastern counties, where it is still in use.] [_Cites_] … 1809 Kendall Trav. III. lxxvii. 193 The swales, or rich hollows, lying behind the uplands, by which latter they are separated from the meadows… No idea how to decipher the bibliographic source, hence its context for definition. However, it differs from almost every other cite in that OED entry and its chief competitor, this thread, in not including “water” or “swamp” in the sentence. Also “behind the uplands” is pretty wrong for “below the uplands,” again, which our and OED’s definitions stress. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/78 "2018-06-23T20:09:53Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > On my property is Holler Branch. It’s part of a bigger water system called Holler Bayou. … Shit, just re-read thread…so "bayou has a whole bunch of social as well as geographical meaning of course…none of which I know. All I know it’s something associated with New Orleans–probably water/lowland geography related. And Creedence Clearwater’s “Down on the Bayou.” So is bayou a holler from down South, but huge because so much of Louisiana coast is a swamp (which may the incorrect term as for geographical science as well social niceties)? ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/79 "2018-06-23T20:12:57Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Shit, just re-read thread…so "bayou has a whole bunch of social as well as geographical meaning of course…none of which I know. All I know it’s something associated with New Orleans–probably water/lowland geography related. And Creedence Clearwater’s “Down on the Bayou.” > > So is bayou a holler from down South, but huge because so much of Louisiana coast is a swamp (which may the incorrect term as for geographical science as well social niceties)? > **[Bayou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayou)** > > In usage in the Southern United States, a bayou (/ˈbaɪ.uː, ˈbaɪ.oʊ/) is a body of water typically found in a flat, low-lying area. It may refer to an extremely slow-moving stream, river (often with a poorly defined shoreline), marshy lake, wetland, or creek. They typically contain brackish water highly conducive to fish life and plankton. Bayous are commonly found in the Gulf Coast region of the southern United States, especially in the Mississippi River Delta, though they also exist elsewhere A ... ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/80 "2018-06-23T20:15:45Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Ready?..a twofer from OED! > > swale, n.3 local. > > (sweɪl) > > Also 6 Sc. swaill, swayll, 9 swail, Sc. swyle. > > [Origin unknown. Prob. conveyed to America from the eastern counties, where it is still in use.] > > [_Cites_] … 1809 Kendall Trav. III. lxxvii. 193 The swales, or rich hollows, lying behind the uplands, by which latter they are separated from the meadows… > > No idea how to decipher the bibliographic source, hence its context for definition. > > However, it differs from almost every other cite in that OED entry and its chief competitor, this thread, in not including “water” or “swamp” in the sentence. > > Also “behind the uplands” is pretty wrong for “below the uplands,” again, which our and OED’s definitions stress. > **[swale | Etymology of swale by etymonline](https://www.etymonline.com/word/swale)** > > "low, hollow place," often boggy, 1580s, a special use of Scottish swaill "low, hollow… See origin and meaning of swale. > **[Swale (landform)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swale_(landform))** > > A swale is a shady spot, or a sunken or marshy place. In US usage in particular, it is a shallow channel with gently sloping sides. Such a swale may be either natural or human-made. Artificial swales are often infiltration basins, designed to manage water runoff, filter pollutants, and increase rainwater infiltration. Bioswales are swales that involve the inclusion of plants or vegetation in their construction, specifically. > The use of swales has been popularized as a rainwater-harvesting and ... Swale is one of those things that has grown in the telling, so to speak, over the years. By contrast, I think a “hollow” has pretty much stayed where it started; I never heard any place out in the West referred to as a “hollow” while growing up, despite the fact that similar landforms certainly exist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569.md?page=5)