Trailer trash

Trailer trash (or trailer park trash) is a derogatory North American English term for a small percentage of poor people living in a trailer or a mobile home.^[1]^[2] It is particularly used to denigrate white people living in such circumstances^[3] and can be considered to fall within the category of racial slurs.^[4]

Pejorative meaning

The term is mostly used as a pejorative to imply poor hygiene, low-level language skills, limited education, slovenly or sexual style of dress, sexual flirtation and promiscuity, and aggressive social behavior of some small percentage of people that live in trailers.

Music

The song "Trailer Trash" appears on Modest Mouse's 1997 album The Lonesome Crowded West.

Toby Keith's song "Trailerhood" and Billy Ray Cyrus's song "Burn Down the Trailer Park" contain humorous lyrics about living in a trailer park.

Colt Ford's 2009 song "No Trash in My Trailer" tells of a redneck type male who throws his girlfriend out of his mobile home, the message being "there ain't no trash in my trailer, since the day I threw you outta here."

Television

The Canadian television series Trailer Park Boys, done in mockumentary style, documents the misadventures of the residents of the Sunnyvale Trailer Park.

Most of the residents of the Pimmett Hills Trailer Park on My Name Is Earl fit this stereotype to some degree or another.

References

^ Spears, Richard A. (1 Oct 2005). McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions:. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0071461078. Retrieved 24 February 2015. the poorest of people who live in run-down house trailers in bad neighborhoods. (Used with singular or plural force. Rude and derogatory.) : She's just trailer trash. Probably doesn't even own shoes.
^ Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. poor people living in trailer parks in the US {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
^ "Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon". Dictionary.com, LLC. a poor, lower-class white person, esp. one living in a mobile home with trash in the vicinity {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
^ Henderson, Anita (Spring 2003). "What's in a Slur?". American Speech. 78 (1): 52–74. doi:10.1215/00031283-78-1-52. Retrieved 11 January 2013.

External links

[1] Spears, Richard A. (1 Oct 2005). McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions:. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0071461078. Retrieved 24 February 2015. the poorest of people who live in run-down house trailers in bad neighborhoods. (Used with singular or plural force. Rude and derogatory.) : She's just trailer trash. Probably doesn't even own shoes.

[2] Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. poor people living in trailer parks in the US {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

[3] "Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon". Dictionary.com, LLC. a poor, lower-class white person, esp. one living in a mobile home with trash in the vicinity {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)

[4] Henderson, Anita (Spring 2003). "What's in a Slur?". American Speech. 78 (1): 52–74. doi:10.1215/00031283-78-1-52. Retrieved 11 January 2013.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]