Most Hoosier historians seem to agree -- the historical explanations are "more ingenious than real."
Take the one that has a contractor in 1825 named either Samuel Hoosier or Hoosher. His workers, who helped build a canal on the Ohio River, were predominantly from Indiana. They were called "Hoo sier's men" or "Hoosiers."
A more colorful tale has the word deriving from the phrase fearful early settlers called out when startled by a knock on their cabin door: "Who's here? -- a call that over time degenerated into Hoosier
And then there's the tongue-in-cheek explanation of Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley, who related the term to the roughness and ferocity of the state's early residents. Hoosier pioneers fo ught so violently, Riley contended, that noses were bitten off and eyes jabbed out during these brawls. Hoosier, said Riley, descends from the question posed by a stranger after entering a southern Indiana tavern and pushing a piece of human flesh with hi s boot toe: "Who's ear?"
Not nearly so clever but perhaps more plausible is the suggestion by Peckham and others that the term may derive from "hoozer" -- a word that in the Cumberland dialect of Old England means "high hills."
"By extension, it was attached to a hill-dweller or highlander and came to suggest roughness and uncouthness," Peckham states. "Thus, throughout the Southeast in the eighteenth century, 'Hoosier' was used generally to describe a backwoodsman, especially a n ignorant boaster, with an overtone of crudeness and even lawlessness."
Nev Gosling, Greater Vancouver, B.C.
-----Original Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf
Of Jimmy D. Moore
Sent: February 7, 2004 6:55 AM
To:
Hill Country Fly Fishers
Subject: [VFB] QUOTE FOR THE
DAY
Provided by our resident
"HOOSIER", Allan Fish. If you linger on this quote, it does become fishing
related.
"A positive attitude may not
solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the
effort."
Herm Albright 1876-1944, Author
