Re: The meaning of "hillbilly"

From: Jeff <richaje_at_2Y5UnOPQ3CtkepEpRvQqyZdPwUvRktOR7XaFrU43GJ3XqpaRf4KNW7ZX4Cg1gkeJ7Dax>
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:39:53 -0000

> /// Perhaps I have a wrong understanding of the word "hillbilly", english not
> being my first language. Is "hick" a synonym for it ? I understand from what you
> say it means "unlearned, isolated person, without knowledge of the world outside
> his immediate surroundings". Did I get it ?
>
> To me, it had a much more negative connotation. "Hillbilly" seemed to be a
> general derogatory term for any group that it less "developped" than the speaker
> of said insult.

Although the term "hillbilly" has gone through many twists and turns over the last two centuries (once it just the free and rebellious settlers of the Appalachia hills) but now it is pretty much defined by the old "Lil' Abner" cartoons and movies like "Deliverence" and summons up images of a poor, ignorant, feuding family with a huge brood of children tending the family moonshine still.

> > To me the Tarsh Exiles are not inbred hillbillies living in ignorance of the
> > outside world. They are Jacobites that were never conquered by the English,
> > revanchist Magyars in the Transylvania wild seeking an independant Hungary,
> > or exiled Norwegians in Russia seeking to reclaim a usurped throne. They are
> > dangerous fanatics, driven by vengeance and hate, hardened and cruel. But
> > they are not hillbillies. :)
>
> /// These analogies are fine and well for the exiles : learned as they are about
> the world, they are living in a time-warp, and not a pleasant one. So if we
> don't call them hillbillies, what do we call them ? Sore losers ?

We call them the Exiles. They are hard and ruthless, rejecting plow and herd.

Jeff