The term originally characterized farmers that had a red neck, caused by sunburn from long hours working in the fields. A citation from 1893 provides a definition as “poorer inhabitants of the rural districts … men who work in the field, as a matter of course, generally have their skin stained red and burnt by the sun, and especially is this true of the back of their necks”.[12] Hats were usually worn and they protected that wearer’s head from the sun, but also provided psychological protection by shading the face from close scrutiny.[13] The back of the neck however was more exposed to the sun and allowed closer scrutiny about the person’s background in the same way callused working hands could not be easily covered.
By 1900, “rednecks” was in common use to designate the political factions inside the Democratic Party comprising poor white farmers in the South.[14] The same group was also often called the “wool hat boys” (for they opposed the rich men, who wore expensive silk hats). A newspaper notice in Mississippi in August 1891 called on rednecks to rally at the polls at the upcoming primary election:[15]
I thought this was common knowledge
Kids out here learning the basics of life on social media.
Kids, remember the vast majority of mortgage payments are in interest alone. Also “mortgage” means “death contract”.
And beer before liquor, never been sicker.“Kids out here learning the basics of life on social media.”
Well, they gotta learn SOMEWHERE! We certainly have dismantled public education to be less of a school and more of a free daycare.
I don’t think the etymology of redneck is part of any school curriculum. OP is just one of today’s 10,000.
idk, i learned that shit on the playground. does that count as curriculum?
Well, it’s also interesting for non native speakers who never thought about it, or just didn’t make the connection. I always assumed that was the reason for the term, but it’s nice to have confirmation.
Liquor before beer, we’re in the clear, so let’s fuckin party.
Right? I don’t think anyone ever even told me that was the origin, it just sort of made sense intuitively.
I have this printed out in my classroom. I teach adults at a trade school and I feel it’s especially important for all adults to know it’s ok to learn new things.
Yeah, I thought everyone kinda intuitively understood this because redneck and farmer used to be synonymous.
I live in a part of America where it’s repeated constantly to school kids. Also, that’s not actually the origin; the red necks were militant unionists who fought for collective bargaining rights in the Coal Wars, the part of American history that never gets taught.
Other sources were already posted in the comments showing that “redneck” referring to farmers predates its usage to refer to coal miners/communists. Definitely agree there’s a lot of stuff conveniently left out of our history books, though.
Obvious slang is obvious.
The forgotten wisdom of Cotton Eye Joe
Where did you come from, where did you go…
A “cotton eye joe” is forgotten slang for a blue eyed black man, btw.
No shit.
Lol my exact words before jumping to the comments. There’s no mysteries to be had here.
The point isn’t that it’s a mystery, but that it’s a word people usually don’t really think about.
No one’s reacting to it with “Hussa, finally this mystery that’s been plaguing me for ages has been resolved for me”, they are reacting to it with “Huh, never really thought about it. Makes sense”
@naticus @John_McMurray You’re a mystery to be had.
Some people have great trouble splitting words into their component parts, as if their internal GPT just stores everything as single token like “redneck”, so they never split it semantically or conceptually into red+neck.
Germans trembling
A man who gers! Did i get it right?
I guess Germans do need to be particularly good at this, based on the mega words they can have.
On the other hand, when listening to American Youtubers read something onscreen, it seems like they use some internal rainbow table to look up prefixes of words, and then just autocomplete the word based on probability.
I say this because during reading they often substitute words with some that sound similar, but are not semantically close to what is written.
Apparently that’s how some people are taught to read. Just kinda guess the word without actually reading it.
"but also provided psychological protection by shading the face from close scrutiny. "
To me it feels like this was made up by some spoiled twat, who couldn’t stand that people that they thought were socially inferior, wouldn’t show the expected obeisance by removing their hat in front of their “betters”.
And I thought a “trucker’s tan” was the window-side arm of someone who drives a lot. Anyhoo, congratulations on being one of the 10,000, amigo!
The entire reason it became an insult was because of wealthy urbanites disparaging the working class.
Did you know the invention of lawns was also a way to flaunt that you were wealthy enough to have unfarmed land?
I hate lawns so much, but there’s no other option unless you go for a townhouse/condo, which are more expensive in my area because of the great location. Why would anyone want to use and pay for extra water, then mow and trim every other week, for a patch of grass that doesn’t provide any benefit as a plant.
You ever try to play catch with a football on a “natural cactus desert landscape yard”?
And to pay an army of people to take care of the stupid lawn.
Uh, they originally weren’t paid. They were paid for.
Look how PaLe I aM! *laughs foppishly*
Downright ghostly, my dear.
You just reminded me of that news blooper.
“I so pale…” “you’re on…” first news reporter starts the news report as if nothing happened, while the second one stiffles giggles
I swear they both give of a Pam Beasley vibe. So two Pams, and they have a Pam/Jim vibe with each other, and one is “so pale”.
deleted by creator
Whatever you call the kind of bigotry your comment represents it’s no better. Thank you for reminding us all that it’s still around.
Being “bigoted” against racists is infinitely better than being racist. Moral-relativist false equivalences can fuck all the way off.
I am talking about being bigoted against “rednecks” who are mostly no more racist than everyone else. I grew up in redneck territory and support those who reclaim it as a label of pride.
Interesting, I read that comment as referring to the wealthy urbanites as mostly racist
Do they call you downpunxx because you go down on every swinging dick within half a mile?
Found the redneck, guys
I thought it was from union miners wearing red bandanas during fights against Pinkertons
They took a negative and turned it into a rallying cry.
Same as with “Yankee Doodle.” Yankee was a derogatory term for Americans, because many were of Dutch origin. “Jan” was a popular Dutch name. Doodle mean, well doo-doo.
Funny how some derogatory terms get embraced and others don’t.
Nerd used to be a big insult. So was ‘porn.’
Looks like use for farmers predates coal miners’ bandanas.
Why are people gatekeeping today’s 10,000?
No! All common knowledge belong to me.
Some people get really snarky about word breakdowns for some reason. See it quite often.
Wait until they learn the Spanish word for black, or worse Latin.
Woke mafia coming for your beans!
/s
Frijole freedom ain’t free!
Yes, the south was a predominantly agrarian economy.
I thought it had something to do with union membership, something about red handkerchiefs.
That’s one of the reasons it was popularized - coal miner unions wearing red bandanas. But late 19th century usage appears to be sunburnt workers.
Interesting. It’s kind of interesting, but in the battle of Blair mountain, there’s definitely some hints that there were already communist and anti-communist sentiments at work. I wonder if the red bandanas were a nod to communism.
yes. The book, “The red badge of Courage” was printed in 1895 and the color’s association with the far left dates back to the Paris commune of the 1870s.
Also, iirc Blair Mountain was backed by the IWW which is anarcho-syndicalist and not Communist.
Nah, that’s just a fish story a certain type likes to tell.
I remember in school people would say something loudly- neck check? or redneck check? I’m really not sure- and then slap you on the back of the neck. The assumption was that if you had a sunburned neck it’d hurt. I can’t remember why the hell it was done, just that it was.
Eh… yes? Isn’t that kinda obvious from the word itself?!
I read somewhere that the red neck part came from the red clay/dirt in the south. Where the backwoodsman usually had their neck covered by the dust. Hence redneck.