Although you'll no longer hear the name today, you might hear a different word if you're north of the Illinois border: Flatlander , a waggish barb that people from Wisconsin use to poke fun at their neighbors to the south.
Whatever you do, don't call Indiana natives Indianans or Indianians. The correct word is Hoosiers , thank you very much. Although no one is sure exactly where it came from, the term has been used in Indiana since at least , when Indiana poet John Finley wrote a poem titled "The Hoosier's Nest. When Southerners subsequently settled in Indiana, it's presumed they brought the word—and the independent, frontier-minded spirit it connotes —with them. Iowa natives typically are called Iowans , although you might also hear them called Hawkeyes.
In the novel, one of the characters, a white frontier scout and trapper, is given the name Hawkeye by Native Americans because of his unfailing sight.
If you're in a neighboring state, like Nebraska, there's one more derogatory word you might hear to describe the people of Iowa: Iowegians. If you're not in Kansas anymore, your name might be Dorothy. But if you're still in Kansas? Well, then you're called either a Kansan or a Jayhawk. Although it's not clear where the latter originated, it's thought to be a combination of "blue jay" and "Sparrow hawk," two birds commonly found in the Missouri Valley.
One is known to be noisy and combative, the other to be genteel and courageous. During the s, Kansas was known for bands of robbers who committed acts of violence in order to demonstrate their opposition to slavery; they were known as "jayhawkers" because they could be seen either as heroes or as villains, depending on one's views about slavery.
The name stuck to Union soldiers from Kansas when the Civil War broke out, and to all Kansans thereafter. Daniel Boone.
Muhammad Ali. George Clooney. Abraham Lincoln. These are just a few of the famous people who hail from Kentucky—and all of them share the demonym Kentuckian. When you're from Louisiana, you're either a Louisianan or a Louisianian. Both are correct, although the latter is what the government officially recognizes. What you really need to make sure you get right are Cajun and Creole , both of which describe ethnic groups that are common to South Louisiana, in particular.
Cajun generally refers to people who are descended from French-Canadians who moved to Louisiana from Nova Scotia in the s. Creole, on the other hand, typically denotes both people of European descent who were born in the French and Spanish colonies, as well as people of mixed European and African ancestry.
In Maine, you can distinguish real locals not by what they're called— Mainers —but by how they pronounce it: Maine-ahs. In the neighboring states of Vermont and Massachusetts, you probably know Maine folks by another pejorative name: Mainiacs. Maryland is sometimes called "America in Miniature. Marylanders will do just fine. According to the U. If you ask the natives, however, that word is wicked bogus.
Instead, the proper term is Bay Stater , which was actually codified into Massachusetts law in as "the official designation of citizens of the commonwealth. It's not just geography that divides Michigan, however. It's also linguistics, as locals are torn about what they should call themselves. Lewis Cass , whom Lincoln thought was a "goose" for riding the political coattails of President Andrew Jackson.
Although some people in Michigan have come to embrace the word, others remain offended by the insult and therefore reject it. Those people typically prefer to call themselves Michiganians , the demonym recognized by the U. One thing both camps can agree on: The proper word for someone who resides in Michigan's Upper Peninsula is Yooper.
People who live in Minnesota love it because life there tends to be simpler. It makes sense, then, that folks there go by a simple name: Minnesotans. Looking for an insulting nickname to lob at your Minnesota friends? There really isn't one. People there are just too friendly, apparently. What's longer and has even more consonants than the word "Mississippi"?
Easy: The word Mississippian , which is what Mississippi natives call themselves. Although there's only one word for people from Missouri— Missourians —there's two ways of saying it: People who pronounce Missouri as "Missour-ee" say "Missour-ee-un" while people who pronounce Missouri as "Missour-uh" say "Missour-uhn.
Unfortunately, so is another nickname that was bestowed on Missourians in the 19th century: Pukes. The term comes from Missouri's neighbor to the north, Illinois, which had seasonal lead mines that attracted Missouri workers in droves. So many Missourians came that Illinoisans felt as though Missouri had "vomited" its citizens into its mines. Hence, the nickname. You might expect a state the size of Montana to have as many nicknames for its citizens as it does square miles of open sky.
But Big Sky Country has just one name for its people: Montanans. Anyone who's driven through Nebraska on a road trip knows that its scenery isn't very interesting. Its demonyms, however? That's another story. The most common name for Nebraska natives, naturally, is Nebraskans. But that's just one name among many. Way back in , for instance, Nebraskans were called Squatters because they settled the land there before it had been formally surveyed.
Later, Nebraskans received another unflattering nickname: Bugeaters , which was likely originated by someone from the East Coast who visited Nebraska during the s, when a disastrous grasshopper plague ruined the state's crops. Because bugs had eaten all the grain, the visitor joked, Nebraskans would have to resort to eating the bugs.
The name Bugeaters stuck and was even an early name for the University of Nebraska's beloved football team. Nebraskans finally traded up in when a local sportswriter began calling the Nebraska Bugeaters the Cornhuskers ; both the football team and Nebraskans at large subsequently embraced the name, which trades on the state's sizable corn harvest. Like many other states, Nevada natives can't quite decide what they want to be called.
Some say Nevadan , others Nevadian. The tiebreaker? And that's what the U. Although it's a mouthful, people in New Hampshire technically are known as New Hampshirites. If you ask natives, however, they tend to prefer the more casual Granite Stater, a derivative of New Hampshire's nickname, The Granite State, which celebrates the state's numerous granite formations and quarries and, figuratively speaking, its loyalty to tradition.
What do you call people from New Jersey? It depends who you ask. If you ask New Yorkers, for example, expect an expletive or two. Ships going from Boston to Maine in warmer months had a strong wind at their back while traveling east, so they were traveling downwind and east, which became combined into the shortcut down east. The term also became associated in general with New England, but Mainers are the ones who kept it for their own.
You don't actually want to call an Iowan an Iowegian to his or her face, though; it's a pejorative term for the people from there often used on the two-lane highways in Minnesota when drivers can't pass an Iowa car going less than the speed limit, for example.
Whether the term Cheesehead is an insult to a Wisconsinite or not, though, depends on who's originating it and possibly if it's being said inside a football stadium. Wisconsin is particularly proud of its dairy industry, so people from there proudly wear the foam cheese wedge hats on their heads to their sports arenas—and quite conspicuously to other ballparks and fields when following their teams—turning a former insult into a badge of honor.
Those hats have even saved people from injury a time or two. For more information about the origins of more of these names, along with the terms for residents of other countries and of major cities around the world, check out Paul Dickson's entertaining book Labels for Locals: What to Call People from Abilene to Zimbabwe Collins, Actively scan device characteristics for identification.
Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. And then there was Massachusetts. The round-up pegged us as Big yikes. And so the rebuttals were swift. Riley librarian for the Massachusetts Historical Society. Of note: this very newspaper may bear at least some of the responsibility for elevating the use of Massachusettsan, which has been published in the Globe as far back as , as Boston.
Believe it or not, Massachusettsan lawmakers sorry somehow found time to take up this pressing issue.
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