Subject: You COULD be a REDNECK HILLBILLY CRACKER
>
>From: "kyrustic" snipped-for-privacy@qx.nt
>
>Many words commonly used in America today have their origins in our Scottish
>roots. While the following three terms are associated today with the
>American South and southern culture, their origins are distinctly Scottish
>and Ulster-Scottish (Scots-Irish), and date to the mass immigration of
>Scottish Lowland and Ulster Presbyterians to America during the 1700's. >
>HILLBILLY
>
>The origin of this American nickname for mountain folk in the Ozarks and in
>Appalachia comes from Ulster. Ulster-Scottish (The often incorrectly labeled
>"Scots-Irish") settlers in the hill-country of Appalachia brought their
>traditional music with them to the new world, and many of their songs and
>ballads dealt with William, Prince of Orange, who defeated the Catholic King
>James II of the Stuart family at the Battle of the Boyne, Ireland in 1690. >
>Supporters of King William were known as "Orangemen" and "Billy Boys" and
>their North American counterparts were soon referred to as "hill-billies".
>It is interesting to note that a traditional song of the Glasgow Rangers
>football club today begins with the line, "Hurrah! Hurrah! We are the Billy
>Boys!" and shares its tune with the famous American Civil War song,
>"Marching Through Georgia".
>
>Stories abound of American National Guard units from Southern states being
>met upon disembarking in Britain during the First and Second World Wars with
>the tune, much to their displeasure! One of these stories comes from Colonel
>Ward Schrantz, a noted historian, Carthage Missouri native, and veteran of
>the Mexican Border Campaign, as well as the First and Second World Wars,
>documented a story where the US Army's 30th Division, made up of National
>Guard units from Georgia, North and South Carolina and Tennessee arrived in
>the United Kingdom."a waiting British band broke into welcoming American
>music, and the soldiery, even the 118th Field Artillery and the 105 Medical
>Battalion from Georgia, broke into laughter.
>
>The excellence of intent and the ignorance of the origins of the American
>music being equally obvious. The welcoming tune was "Marching Through >Georgia."
>
> REDNECK
>
>The origins of this term are Scottish and refer to supporters of the
>National Covenant and The Solemn League and Covenant, or "Covenanters",
>largely Lowland Presbyterians, many of whom would flee Scotland for Ulster
>(Northern Ireland) during persecutions by the British Crown. The Covenanters
>of 1638 and 1641 signed the documents that stated that Scotland desired the
>Presbyterian form of church government and would not accept the Church of
>England as its official state church.
>
>Many Covenanters signed in their own blood and wore red pieces of cloth
>around their necks as distinctive insignia; hence the term "Red neck", which
>became slang for a Scottish dissenter*. One Scottish immigrant, interviewed
>by the author, remembered a Presbyterian minister, one Dr. Coulter, in
>Glasgow in the 1940's wearing a red clerical collar -- is this symbolic of
>the "rednecks"?
>
>Since many Ulster-Scottish settlers in America (especially the South) were
>Presbyterian, the term was applied to them, and then, later, their Southern
>descendants. One of the earliest examples of its use comes from 1830, when
>an author noted that "red-neck" was a "name bestowed upon the
>Presbyterians." It makes you wonder if the originators of the ever-present
>"redneck" joke are aware of the term's origins?
>
>*Another term for Presbyterians in Ireland was a "Blackmouth". Members of
>the Church of Ireland (Anglicans) used this as a slur, referring to the fact
>that one could tell a Presbyterian by the black stains around his mouth from
>eating blackberries while at secret, illegal Presbyterian Church Services in
>the countryside.
>
>CRACKER
>
>Another Ulster-Scot term, a "cracker" was a person who talked and boasted,
>and "craic" (Crack) is a term still used in Scotland and Ireland to describe
>"talking", chat or conversation in a social sense ("Let's go down to the pub
>and have a craic"; "what's the craic"). The term, first used to describe a
>southerner of Ulster-Scottish background, later became a nickname for any
>white southerner, especially those who were uneducated.
>
>And while not an exclusively Southern term, but rather referring in general
>to all Americans, the origins of this word are related to the other three. >
>GRINGO
>
>Often used in Latin America to refer to people from the United States,
>"gringo" also has a Scottish connection. The term originates from the
>Mexican War (1846-1848), when American Soldiers would sing Robert Burns's
>"Green Grow the Rashes, O!", or the very popular song "Green Grows the
>Laurel" (or lilacs) while serving in Mexico, thus inspiring the locals to
>refer to the Yankees as "gringos", or "green-grows". The song "Green Grows
>the Laurel" refers to several periods in Scottish and Ulster-Scottish
>history; Jacobites might "change the green laurel for the "bonnets so blue"
>of the exiled Stewart monarchs of Scotland during the Jacobite Rebellions of
>the late 1600's - early 1700's. Scottish Lowlanders and Ulster Presbyterians
>would change the green laurel of James II in 1690 for the "Orange and Blue"
>of William of Orange, and later on, many of these Ulstermen would immigrate
>to America, and thus "change the green laurel for the red, white and blue." >
>Sources
>
>Adamson, Ian. The Ulster People: Ancient, Medieval and Modern. Bangor,
>Northern Ireland: Petani Press, 1991.
>
>Bruce, Duncan. The Mark of the Scots: Their Astonishing Contributions to
>History, Science, Democracy, Literature and the Arts. Secaucus, New Jersey:
>Birch Lane Press, 1997.
>
>Fischer, David Hackett. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America.
>Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
>
>McWhiney, Grady. Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South. Tuscaloosa:
>University of Alabama Press, 1988.
>
>Personal Interview, Mr. Bill Carr, Ayrshire native and member, Celtic
>Society of the Ozarks, January 2001.
>
>Stevenson, James A.C. SCOOR-OOT: A Dictionary of SCOTS Words and Phrases in
>Current Use. London: The Athlone Press, 1989.
>
>Walsh, Frank, and the 12th Louisiana String Band. Songs of the Celtic South >album, 1991.
"A vote for Kerry is a de facto vote for bin Laden." Strider