Most of my columns for some time now have been recent research and do not appear in any of my books. Have you ever been called a “local yokel” by an outsider? If you have, it probably wasn’t to your face and you wouldn’t know about it.

“Local yokels” is a rhyming pejorative expression used to infer that the people living in a particular area are country folk and ignorant of civilized ways of living and thinking.

The origins of the word “yokel” are uncertain, but it seems likely to me that it derived from the dialectal English word “yokel” used as the name for the green woodpecker. This particularly applies because Dickens may have been the first to put it in print. It is a synonym to “hayseed,” also used for “green” rural people.

This expression may not have begun with such a negative connotation, however. Early citations seem to be used as an expression of admiration for local people in rural communities. In Charles Dickens' British weekly journal, All the Year Round, Nov. 11, 1893, in “A Study in Character,” speaking of the residents of “a favorite resort of mine, an old-fashioned little town in the Midlands,” he writes:

“I am a sociable man, too, and always eager to be amused, therefore the Beardingham entertainments were welcome to me, for if I could not always laugh with my hosts, I could always laugh at them. And so I had allowed myself to drift into intimacy with a good many of the local yokels.”

Though it seems that Dickens intended to infer that these rural folks were a bit backward, he harbored a quaint fondness for them.

The term appears to have soon spread into New England and become popular, like so many expressions in the past, among college students.

In an article on the sports page of the Middlebury College Newsletter, Middlebury, Vermont, March 1, 1839, in “Off Side by Hawk” we find this cute quip rehashing the recent seasons:

“Local yokels will long remember Gregg’s jumps of 110 to 112 feet during the festive weekend a fortnight back.”

Nothing here would indicate a cultural separation or resentment.

The Cornel Countryman, New York State College of Agriculture, Nov. 1947, “Peace—Without Victory” by Ned Bandler on page 6 gives a hint of disrespect for the “yokels”:

“The more timid stoop to the indignity of calling on some of the ‘local yokels’ to keep them out of quicksand, bogs, briar tangles, and the trackless wilderness that defies even the biggest potentate of the stock.”

As time progressed, cultural differences increased. In the Canadian Christian publication, The Calvinist Contact, June 16, 1989, in a letter on the topic of “Film Reflects New Age Thought” about "Field of Dreams" on page 6, we can see a modern viewpoint being promoted by some:

“Baseball is only the setting for this story, not its religious centre, But to New Age visionaries, shoeless Joe Jackson and his phantom friends on the baseball field are not as unreal as those unseeing local yokels who failed to comprehend what ‘really’ was going on,”

If you have a phrase you would like to see featured here, please text Stan at 931-212-3303 or email him at stan@stclair.net