Yokel is one of several derogatory terms referring to the stereotype of unsophisticated country people. The term is of uncertain etymology and is only attested from the early 19th century on. [1] [2]
Yokels are depicted as straightforward, simple, naïve, and easily deceived, failing to see through false pretenses. They are also depicted as talking about bucolic topics like cows, sheep, goats, wheat, alfalfa, fields, crops, and tractors to the exclusion of all else. Broadly, they are portrayed as unaware of or uninterested in the world outside their own surroundings.
In the UK, yokels are traditionally depicted as wearing the old West Country/farmhand's dress of straw hat and white smock, chewing or sucking a piece of straw and carrying a pitchfork or rake, listening to "Scrumpy and Western" music. Yokels are portrayed as living in rural areas of Britain such as the West Country, East Anglia and the Yorkshire Dales. They speak with country dialects from various parts of Britain. [3]
In the United States, the term is used to describe someone living in rural areas.
Synonyms for yokel include bubba, country bumpkin, hayseed, chawbacon, rube , redneck , hillbilly and hick.
In Scotland, those from the Highlands and Islands, Moray, Aberdeenshire, and other rural areas are often referred to by urban or lowland Scots as teuchters.
People from the rural south of Scotland are sometimes known as "Doonhamers" ("Doon hame" meaning "down home").
In Ireland, this term is generally used by urban dwellers as a slur for rural dwellers. In Dublin and Belfast, it's often used for people from outside said cities, even people from other large urban areas. Synonyms for culchie include country bumpkin, bogger, muck-savage and redneck.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term is a "by-form" of the personal name Richard (like Dick) and Hob (like Bob) for Robert. Although the English word "hick" is of recent vintage, distinctions between urban and rural dwellers are ancient.
According to a popular etymology, hick derives from the nickname "Old Hickory" for Andrew Jackson, one of the first presidents of the United States to come from rural hard-scrabble roots. This nickname suggested that Jackson was tough and enduring like an old hickory tree. Jackson was particularly admired by the residents of remote and mountainous areas of the United States, people who would come to be known as "hicks."
Another explanation of the term hick describes a time when hickory nut flour was used and sold. Tough times, such as the depression, led to the use of hickory nuts as an alternative to traditional grains. People who harvested, processed, or sold hickory products, such as hickory flour, were referred to as "hicks". The term was generalized over time to include people who lived in rural areas and were not considered as sophisticated as their urban counterparts.
Though not a term explicitly denoting lower class, some argue that the term degrades impoverished rural people and that "hicks" continue as one of the few groups that can be ridiculed and stereotyped with impunity. In "The Redneck Manifesto," Jim Goad argues that this stereotype has largely served to blind the general population to the economic exploitation of rural areas, specifically in Appalachia, the South, and parts of the Midwest.
In Australia and New Zealand, the term "bogan" is used to refer to someone who is considered unrefined or unsophisticated.
The Beverly Hillbillies is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor backwoods family from the Ozark Mountains of Missouri who move to posh Beverly Hills, California after striking oil on their land. The show was produced by Filmways and was created by Paul Henning. It was followed by two other Henning-inspired "country cousin" series on CBS: Petticoat Junction and its spin-off Green Acres, which reversed the rags-to-riches, country-to-city model of The Beverly Hillbillies.
Hillbilly is a term for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in the Appalachian region and Ozarks. As people migrated out of the region during the Great Depression, the term spread northward and westward with them.
The boondocks is an American expression from the Tagalog (Filipino) word bundók ("mountain"). It originally referred to a remote rural area, but now, is often applied to an out-of-the-way area considered backward and unsophisticated by city-folk. It can also occasionally refer to a mountain in both Filipino and American context.
Dude is American slang for an individual, typically male. From the 1870s to the 1960s, dude primarily meant a male person who dressed in an extremely fashionable manner or a conspicuous citified person who was visiting a rural location, a "city slicker". In the 1960s, dude evolved to mean any male person, a meaning that slipped into mainstream American slang in the 1970s. Current slang retains at least some use of all three of these common meanings.
Teuchter is a Lowland Scots word sometimes used to offensively describe a Scottish Highlander, in particular a Gaelic-speaking Teuchter. The term is also in use with more broader meanings attached, commonly applied to any Scot perceived to be from a rural area, and within Glasgow those who are from outwith the Greater Glasgow area. It is offensive, equivalent to other cultural epithets used by more powerful groups to describe people they have oppressed, but is often seen as amusing by the speaker. The term is contemptuous, essentially describing someone seen to be uncouth and rural.
Trailer trash is a derogatory North American English term for poor people living in a trailer or a run-down mobile home in a bad neighborhood. It is particularly used to denigrate white people living in such circumstances.
Charro, in Mexico, is historically the horseman from the countryside, the Ranchero, who lived and worked in the haciendas and performed all his tasks on horseback, working mainly as vaqueros and caporales, among other jobs. He was renowned for his superb horsemanship, for his skill in handling the lasso, and for his unique costume designed specially for horseback riding. Today, this name is given to someone who practices charreada, considered the national sport of Mexico which maintains traditional rules and regulations in effect from colonial times up to the Mexican Revolution.
Bogan is Australian and New Zealand slang for a person whose speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour are considered unrefined or unsophisticated. Depending on the context, the term can be pejorative or self-deprecating. The prevalence of the term bogan has also been associated with changing social attitudes towards social class in Australia.
"Chav", also "charver", "scally" and "roadman" in parts of England, is a British term, usually used in a pejorative way. The term is used to describe an anti-social lower-class youth dressed in sportswear. Julie Burchill described the term as a form of "social racism". "Chavette" is a related term referring to female chavs, and the adjectives "chavvy", "chavvish", and "chavtastic" are used to describe things associated with chavs, such as fashion, slang, etc. In other countries like Ireland, "skanger" is used in a similar manner. In Ontario, the term is "hoodman", an equivalent of the term "roadman" used in England. In Newfoundland, "skeet" is used in a similar way, while in Australia, "eshay" or "adlay" is used.
The Bumpkin Billionaires was a British humoristic comic strip which ran from 1974 until 2000. It was drawn by Mike Lacey throughout except for the last years in Whizzer and Chips by Jim Hanson.
Culchie is a term in Hiberno-English for someone from rural Ireland. The term usually has a pejorative meaning directed by urban Irish against rural Irish, but since the late 20th century, the term has also been reclaimed by some who are proud of their rural or small-town origin. In Dublin, the term culchie is often used to describe someone from outside County Dublin. In Belfast, Northern Ireland, the term is used to refer to persons from outside of the city proper but not necessarily outside the Greater Belfast area. The etymology of the term is unclear.
Stereotypes of white Americans in the United States are generalizations about the character, behavior, or appearance of white Americans by other Americans in the United States.
Redneck is a derogatory term mainly, but not exclusively, applied to white Americans perceived to be crass and unsophisticated, closely associated with rural whites of the southern United States.
"Rednecks and Broomsticks" is the seventh episode in the twenty-first season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 29, 2009. In the episode, Lisa befriends three teenaged Wiccans after getting lost in the woods during a game of hide-and-seek, and must clear her new friends' names when they are accused of cursing the townspeople with their supposed witchcraft. Meanwhile, Homer befriends Cletus after learning that he and his friends make their own moonshine.
Poor White is a sociocultural classification used to describe economically disadvantaged Whites in the English-speaking world, especially White Americans with low incomes.
Trae Crowder is an American comedian and co-author of The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin' Dixie Outta the Dark and Round Here and Over Yonder: A Front-Porch Travel Guide by Two Progressive Hillbillies .
Boxoffice International Pictures, Inc. was a film distributor owned by Harry Novak, who later used the alternate name Harry Novak Productions. It ceased operations in 2005.
The Appalachian region and its people have historically been stereotyped by observers, with the basic perceptions of Appalachians painting them as backwards, rural, and anti-progressive. These widespread, limiting views of Appalachia and its people began to develop in the post-Civil War; Those who "discovered" Appalachia found it to be a very strange environment, and depicted its "otherness" in their writing. These depictions have persisted and are still present in common understandings of Appalachia today, with a particular increase of stereotypical imagery during the late 1950s and early 1960s in sitcoms. Common Appalachian stereotypes include those concerning economics, appearance, and the caricature of the "hillbilly."
The Metro Detroit region of Michigan is home to a significant Appalachian population, one of the largest populations of Urban Appalachians in the United States. The most common state of origin for Appalachian people in Detroit is Kentucky, while many others came from Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, and elsewhere in the Appalachia region. The Appalachian population has historically been centered in the Detroit neighborhoods of Brightmoor, Springwells, Corktown and North Corktown, as well as the Detroit suburbs of Hazel Park, Ypsilanti, Taylor, and Warren. Beginning after World War I, Appalachian people moved to Detroit in large numbers seeking jobs. Between 1940 and 1970, approximately 3.2 million Appalachian and Southern migrants settled in the Midwest, particularly in large cities such as Detroit and Chicago. This massive influx of rural Appalachian people into Northern and Midwestern cities has been called the "Hillbilly Highway". The culture of Metro Detroit has been significantly influenced by the culture, music, and politics of Appalachia. The majority of people of Appalachian heritage in Metro Detroit are Christian and either white or black, though Appalachian people can be of any race, ethnicity, or religion.
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