# 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:** 5
**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, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/81 "2018-06-23T20:16:34Z")
ETA: “Down South” is used, I believe, everywhere above the Mason-Dixon line for all you guys. Maybe Southerners have a different way of saying “South[er]” from them. ---
**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, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/82 "2018-06-23T20:17:44Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > [Bayou - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayou) Give us a taste, at least… 🙂 ---
**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, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/83 "2018-06-23T20:21:39Z")
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq;21041650…[Swale (landform) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swale_(landform))…[/QUOTE] Linky boo-boo. Fixed: [Swale (landform) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swale_(landform)) [Weird fault of Wiki URL] ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/84 "2018-06-23T21:07:27Z")
I don’t think there’s any implication that living “down in the holler” makes you more of a yokel than if your place of residence was “up the crick” or “up in them hills”. It’s just the general association of “holler” with the people who own the term as part of their vocabulary. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/85 "2018-06-23T21:32:24Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > I read the piece that the OP is referring to. It was a distressing article in _Rolling Stone_, and the big-shot actor is Johnny Depp. > > I was surprised to learn that he came from Kentucky, as I don’t remember ever hearing him speak with an accent. [Look for the shy boy on the right playing slide guitar.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwQr8wGIM14) In my vernacular, a holler (or hollow) has at least one dead end, whereas a valley goes on through. The difference being that one might see a traveler or two move through a valley especially if there’s enough water at the bottom to hold a boat. But a holler might be a wrinkle in the land further up the side of a mountain. It could be a bowl or a narrow stretch, and it could end in a cliff or a gentle slope. But if you’re “up a holler” you’ve got no where to go, economically or geographically speaking. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/86 "2018-06-23T21:35:20Z")
The celeb in question is Johnny Depp, and he was talking about his mother, born in Floyd County, KY in 1935. Depp himself was born in Owensboro, KY, on the Ohio River in the much flatter western part of the state, almost certainly in a hospital, and far from anything I’d call a holler. Floyd County is in the heart of Appalachian KY and home to hollers aplenty. (I’ve seen references that she was born in the county seat of Prestonsburg, but in 1935 that’s probably just where the birth certificate was filed.) In modern-day eastern Kentucky usage it can be used either purely descriptively or perjoratively. You might say someone lives back in a holler or tell them to drive “up the holler”, meaning away from the main road. (Oddly, you never hear “down the holler”–it’s mostly “out of the holler”.) But saying someone came “straight out of the holler” is certainly calling them unrefined, and “holler rat” is used the same way “hood rat” is elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/87 "2018-06-23T21:44:34Z")
The holler where I grew up indeed dead ended at our property. Carden Holler, which is nearby, connects a state highway with U. S. 11-E. It ends near the Bristol Speedway, which is a major NASCAR stop. We could hear the races from our front porch (I assume my parents’ hearing isn’t good enough to pick it up anymore). I heard stories about moonshiners in the woods around Carden Holler as a kid. The end of our holler was where people came to buy fresh eggs; we had 5000 chickens until I was around 14. Some one mentioned growing tobacco earlier. If my memory is working, everyone has an allotment that they could grow based on the size of the farm. If someone chose not to use their allotment, they could sell it. Eventually the government offered a buyout, which my parents took. After that they started just renting most of the farm out as pasture for neighbors’ cattle. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/88 "2018-06-24T14:26:25Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Wait, one can get a disability check just for being poor? 😕 No, but having fewer sources of income means that whatever government checks the family receives (such as retirement or disability) would be a larger fraction of the total family income. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2018, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/89 "2018-06-25T01:50:16Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > The high-rated TV series _Justified_ will introduce you to the hollows of Harlan County. [hijack] I adore Justified, but don’t watch it to find out what the landscape looks like. Hollers don’t have sagebrush, goddammit, and if you’ve spent any time in Appalachia, you’ll know they got the landscape wrong–a pretty serious flaw for a show with themes so rooted in the land. It’s filmed in California, [and even the start, Timothy Olyphant, acknowledges the discordance](http://www.kentucky.com/entertainment/tv/article44395737.html): > [@Olyphant](#): > > I would love to do it [film in Kentucky], if it were up to me. I would be there. . . . We could do better driving scenes. We could save a lot of money in post (production) because we wouldn’t have to get rid of the palm trees. Other than that, the show’s freakin awesome. [/hijack] ---
**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 25, 2018, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/90 "2018-06-25T02:45:54Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > No, but having fewer sources of income means that whatever government checks the family receives (such as retirement or disability) would be a larger fraction of the total family income. Do people in rural areas have a higher rate of disability? Cite, please. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2018, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/91 "2018-06-25T03:11:42Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Do people in rural areas have a higher rate of disability? Cite, please. > [@](#): > > Of over 300 million Americans, roughly 37 > million, or 12 %, report experiencing at least one > type of impairment. In metropolitan counties, > 11% of people reported having at least one of > the six impairments associated with disability. In > contrast, 15% of people living in micropolitan > counties and 17% of people living in noncore > counties reported at least one impairment. > Combined, these “rural” nonmetropolitan > counties represented about 15% of the U.S. > population but nearly 20% of all people with > impairments (Table 1). **[From here:](https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=http://int.search.myway.com/search/GGmain.jhtml&httpsredir=1&article=1006&context=ruralinst_independent_living_community_participation)** ---
**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 25, 2018, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/92 "2018-06-25T03:21:30Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > **[From here:](https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=http://int.search.myway.com/search/GGmain.jhtml&httpsredir=1&article=1006&context=ruralinst_independent_living_community_participation)** So 15%. Not a lot. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2018, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/93 "2018-06-25T03:32:28Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > So 15%. Not a lot. The cite claims 11% for metropolitan and 17.4% for non-core micropolitan regions (ie, rural). Where did you get the 15% figure from? ---
**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 25, 2018, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/94 "2018-06-25T03:40:29Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > The cite claims 11% for metropolitan and 17.4% for non-core micropolitan regions (ie, rural). Where did you get the 15% figure from? Wow, 17.4%. Still not a lot. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2018, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/95 "2018-06-25T03:42:45Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Wow, 17.4%. Still not a lot. You asked if rural Americans have a higher rate of disability compared to their urban cousins. The answer is yes. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2018, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/96 "2018-06-25T03:50:58Z")
I thought _hillbilly_ is an example of [reduplication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduplication): _Bill_ rhymes with _Hill_ and, of course, _hillbilly_ sounds better than _hillbill_. ---
**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 25, 2018, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/97 "2018-06-25T03:52:33Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > You asked if rural Americans have a higher rate of disability compared to their urban cousins. The answer is yes. But sbunny8 claims that Southerners/Kentuckians rely on disability or retirement. That can’t possibly be true, versus the rest of the country. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2018, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/98 "2018-06-25T04:00:52Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > But sbunny8 claims that Southerners/Kentuckians rely on disability or retirement. That can’t possibly be true, versus the rest of the country. That is not remotely what sbunny8 said. He/she specified certain areas of those regions, specifically ‘hollers’ and the communities that live there. > [@sbunny8](#): > > Valley is to holler as tree trunk is to tree branch (or maybe twig). > > Obviously, we’re talking about a rural area. But it’s more than that; it’s a poor area too. The land in the holler is likely to be cheap because #1 there’s less demand being so far away from the main roads or the city, and #2 there’s not so much daylight, so it’s hard to grow crops back there, and #3 when the river floods it tends to wash the topsoil down into the valley. So the valley generally ends up with rich soil and the hollers end up with rocky soil. 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. > > In a nutshell: rural, poor, a long way from the city, low property values, very few jobs. You seem very keen to hijack this thread: May I suggest you open another in Great Debates asking why people in poor, rural areas have higher rates of disability. ---
**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 25, 2018, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/99 "2018-06-25T04:08:06Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > That is not remotely what sbunny8 said. He/she specified certain areas of those regions, specifically ‘hollers’ and the communities that live there. > > You seem very keen to hijack this thread: May I suggest you open another in Great Debates asking why people in poor, rural areas have higher rates of disability. NO. Most families in KY, or elsewhere, do not receive disability or retirement. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2018, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569/100 "2018-06-25T04:11:50Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > NO. Most families in KY, or elsewhere, do not receive disability or retirement. Who here has claimed that? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-southerners-kentuckians-whats-a-holler/816569.md?page=6)