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.
i think the bigger thing here is how broke teens and young adults don’t have many places else to hang out and do this in person.
honestly its less about mixing and more about the quantity you drink. at the end alcohol is alcohol, its just that the prior consumption of it makes you more likely to get overconfident and take things too far.
anyway, its one those you have to live to learn what your limits are, so the point is moot anyway. finding the sweet spot and managing to stay there takes a bit of experience.
Right? I don’t think anyone ever even told me that was the origin, it just sort of made sense intuitively.
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.
The entire reason it became an insult was because of wealthy urbanites disparaging the working class.
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”.
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.
the reason it remained that way is because they’re fucking racists (mostly)
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.
Do they call you downpunxx because you go down on every swinging dick within half a mile?
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.
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.
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.
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.
This was an extension of that. Unionist coal miners didn’t have red necks (because they work under ground) so they would wear red handkerchiefs to show solidarity with farm hands.
This is the history that capitalist removed from history books. That and white washing The Black Panthers, American Indian Movement and The Rainbow coalition.
Wiki says:
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] … By 1900, “rednecks” was in common use to designate the political factions inside the Democratic Party comprising poor white farmers in the South.[14]
Coal miners
The term “redneck” in the early 20th century was occasionally used in reference to American coal miner union members who wore red bandanas for solidarity.
Looks like sunburn predates coal miners.
I wouldn’t take that as gospel giving the single reference for that claim and the discussion for that article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Redneck
I mean to have an actual citation from 1893 that provides a written out definition is huge. These things are around for a good bit before making their way into documentation.
Reading through the talk, many people say coal and then provide links that come far after 1893.
