Hick

This article is about the derogatory term. For the philosopher and theologian, see John Hick.

Hick (also country hick or country bumpkin) is a derogatory term for a person from a rural area. It connotes a degree of crude simplicity and backward conservativism in values, manners, and mores. In a number of rural areas it is a term applied to a snob coming from wealth, usually a Southerner, as in the phrase, "You big shot hick."

Origins

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, the term 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."

Though not a term explicitly denoting class, some argue that the term degrades impoverished rural people and that "hicks" continue as almost the only group 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 and the South.

"Hick" is less frequently used as a term for any American of European descent by other racial groups.

Popular culture

A famous usage of the term comes from the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy which features the Variety headline "STIX NIX HIX PIX", which was a story about how movies portraying rural-dwellers as hicks were unpopular in such areas ("the sticks"). Stereotypes of hicks in the popular mind are often derived from such motion pictures as The Egg and I, featuring the first screen appearance of the hick characters Ma and Pa Kettle. The Beverly Hillbillies were television hicks, although many feel that they, particularly Granny, often in the final analysis got the better of their nemesis, Mrs. Drysdale, and were more mentally stable than the repressed and effete Miss Jane Hathaway, banker Drysdale's secretary.

Former NBA player Larry Bird often describes himself, with pride, as "A hick from French Lick"; which, of course, is a reference to the fact that he is an unpretentious, humble man from the small town of French Lick, Indiana.

The nurse in South Pacific describes herself as a "hick" from Little Rock, Arkansas.

The name of the villain in the film Cars is Chick Hicks, a trash-talking southern anthropomorphized car.

The valuing of items or styles associated with rural areas is occasionally called "hick chic."

Annually, a rural festival called the Hick Fair is held at 4-H Camp Kidd near Parsons, WV. The fair has been held for more that two decades and features an extensive horse show, games, craft show, and the best corndogs in West Virginia.

Justin Kerr is one of the most highly regarded hicks in the United States, though there is some competition in Belarus.

See also

• Hillbilly
• Redneck
• Yokel

Further Reading

Goad, Jim. (1997). The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684838648