Vol. 66 No. 1 (2018)
Article

Understanding St. Louis’ Love for Hoosier

PDF
  • Daniel Duncan
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00277738.2017.1344460

Published 2018-01-02

Keywords

  • Restaurant names,
  • American Chinese restaurants,
  • transliterated hanzi,
  • food onomastics

Copyright (c) 2018 American Name Society

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

While the American English demonym hoosier refers to Indiana residents, it means “poor, rural, white trash” in St. Louis, Missouri. This paper uses discourse analysis of several texts across a range of registers and formalities to explore why its use persists despite less-localized alternatives (redneck, etc.) and why it has become enregistered as a feature of the local dialect. Findings show hoosier is used to police the behavior of the target. Unlike similar slurs, its use requires knowledge of St. Louis’ social geography. Hoosier allows speakers to demonstrate localness while positioning themselves and St. Louis as cosmopolitan compared to the derided target. As such, hoosier asserts positive values for St. Louisans who use it.

PDF

References

  1. Agha, Asif. 2003. The social life of cultural value. Language & Communication 23: 231–273.10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00012-0
  2. Besnier, Niko. 2002. Transgenderism, locality, and the miss galaxy beauty pageant in Tonga. American Ethnologist 29: 534–566.10.1525/ae.2002.29.3.534
  3. Bianchi, Claudia. 2014. Slurs and appropriation: An echoic account. Journal of Pragmatics 66: 35–44.10.1016/j.pragma.2014.02.009
  4. Blommaert, Jan. 2007. Sociolinguistic scales. Intercultural Pragmatics 4, no. 1: 1–19.10.1515/IP.2007.001
  5. Cassidy, Frederic. 1996. Dictionary of American regional English. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  6. Cavanaugh, Jillian R. 2005. Accent matters: Material consequences of sounding local in northern Italy. Language & Communication 25, no. 2: 127–148.10.1016/j.langcom.2005.02.002
  7. Croom, Adam M. 2013. How to do things with slurs: Studies in the way of derogatory words. Language & Communication 33: 177–204.10.1016/j.langcom.2013.03.008
  8. Dong, Jie, and Jan Blommaert. 2009. Space, scale and accents: Constructing migrant identity in Beijing. Multilingua 28: 1–23.10.1515/mult.2009.001
  9. Duranti, Alessandro. 1997. Indexical speech across samoan communities. American Anthropologist 99, no. 2: 342–354.10.1525/aa.1997.99.issue-2
  10. Editorial Board. 1998. Happy anniversary, you old dog!. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 7.
  11. Goodheart, Jill C. 2004. I’m no hoosier: Evidence of the Northern cities shift in St. Louis, Missouri. MA Thesis, Michigan State University.
  12. Gordon, Colin. 2008. Mapping decline: St. Louis and the fate of the American City. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.10.9783/9780812291506
  13. Graf, Jeffrey. 2000. The word hoosier. http://www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/internet/extra/hoosier.html (accessed February 1, 2017).
  14. Johnstone, Barbara. 2009. Pittsburghese shirts: Commodification and the enregisterment of an urban dialect. American Speech 84, no. 2: 157–175.10.1215/00031283-2009-013
  15. Johnstone, Barbara, and Scott F. Kiesling. 2008. Indexicality and experience: Exploring the meanings of /aw/-monophthongization in Pittsburgh. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12, no. 1: 5–33.10.1111/josl.2008.12.issue-1
  16. Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. 1989. Hypersegregation in US metropolitan areas: Black and hispanic segregation along five dimensions. Demography 26, no. 3: 373–391.10.2307/2061599
  17. McGonigle, Pat. 2015. Here’s why ‘hoosier’ is an insult in St. Louis. KSDK. http://www.ksdk.com/story/homepage/2015/11/06/historiansetymologistspointtotransplantedindianaworkersatchrysleranheuserbusch/75284654/ (accessed November 6, 2015).
  18. Merkel, Jim. 2010. Hoosiers and Scrubby Dutch: St. Louis’s South side. St. Louis: Reedy Press.
  19. Metcalf, Allan. 2017. Hoosiers, Suckers, Badgers, and Wolverines. Lingua Franca. http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2017/01/19/hoosierssuckersbadgersandwolverines/ (accessed January 24, 2017).
  20. Modan, Gabriella G. 2007. Turf wars: Discourse, diversity and the politics of place. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.10.1002/9780470773970
  21. MU330. 1997. Hoosier love. Press. Monte Sereno, CA: Asian Man Records.
  22. Murray, Thomas E. 1986. The language of St. Louis, Missouri: Variation in the Gateway City. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
  23. Murray, Thomas E. 1987. ‘You $#^%?*&@ Hoosier!’: Derogatory names and the derogatory name in St. Louis, Missouri. Names 35, no. 1: 1–7.10.1179/nam.1987.35.1.1
  24. Pagliai, Valentina. 2003. Lands I came to sing: Negotiating identities and places in the Tuscan Contrasto. In Sociolinguistics: The essential readings, eds. C. B. Paulston and G. R. Tucker, 44–68. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  25. Shinkle, Florence. 2001. Westwood’s new ordinance on dogs raises Hackles and heated disputes. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 19.
  26. Sonderegger, John. 2005. Take a look around—We’re all grown up and exceeding expectations. St. Charles County Post, April 22.
  27. Warner, Michael. 2002. Publics and counterpublics (abbreviated version). Quarterly Journal of Speech 88, no. 4: 413–425.10.1080/00335630209384388