Editing Hoosier (section)

==Origin==
In addition to "The Hoosier's Nest," the term also appeared in the ''[[Indianapolis Journal]]''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s "Carrier's Address" on January 1, 1833. There are many suggestions for the derivation of the word but none is universally accepted. In 1833 the [[The Statesman (Pittsburgh)|Pittsburgh ''Statesman'']] said the term had been in use for "some time past" and suggested it originated from census workers calling "Who's here?". Also in 1833, former Indiana Governor [[James B. Ray]] began publishing a newspaper titled ''The Hoosier''.<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=Niles' Weekly Register|date=December 28, 1833|title=The Hoosier|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xc0-AQAAMAAJ&q=hoosier&pg=PA292}}</ref>

===Scholarship===
{{anchor|yokel}}
In 1900, [[Meredith Nicholson]] wrote ''The Hoosiers'', an early attempt to study the [[etymology]] of the word as applied to Indiana residents. [[Jacob Piatt Dunn]], longtime secretary of the [[Indiana Historical Society]], published ''The Word Hoosier'', a similar attempt, in 1907.<ref name=twh>{{cite web |url= http://www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/internet/extra/hoosier.html |title=The Word Hoosier |work=Indiana.edu |publisher=[[Indiana University Bloomington]] |access-date=March 17, 2012 |last=Graf |first=Jeffrey |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180312231908/http://www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/internet/extra/hoosier.html |archive-date=2018-03-12 |date=November 1, 2000 |orig-year=Last revised: July 28, 2016 }}</ref> Both chronicled some of the popular and satirical etymologies circulating at the time and focused much of their attention on the use of the word in the [[Upland South]] to refer to woodsmen, yokels, and rough people. Dunn traced the word back to the [[Cumbrian dialect|Cumbrian]] {{lang|mis|hoozer}}, meaning anything unusually large, derived from the [[Old English]] ''hoo'' (as at [[Sutton Hoo]]), meaning "high" and "hill". The importance of immigrants from northern [[England]] and southern [[Scotland]] was reflected in numerous placenames including the [[Cumberland Mountains]], the [[Cumberland River]], and the [[Cumberland Gap]].<ref name=whatIsAHoosier /> Nicholson defended the people of Indiana against such an association, while Dunn concluded that the early settlers had adopted the nickname self-mockingly and that it had lost its negative associations by the time of Finley's poem.{{sfnp |Haller |2008 |p=6}}

Johnathan Clark Smith subsequently showed that Nicholson and Dunn's earliest sources within Indiana were mistaken. A letter by James Curtis cited by Dunn and others as the earliest known use of the term was actually written in 1846, not 1826. Similarly, the use of the term in an 1859 newspaper item quoting an 1827 diary entry by Sandford Cox was more likely an editorial comment and not from the original diary. Smith's earliest sources led him to argue that the word originated as a term along the [[Ohio River]] for [[flatboat]]men from Indiana and did not acquire its pejorative meanings until 1836, ''after'' Finley's poem.<ref name="smithNotSouthernScorn">{{cite magazine |url=http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/view/12270/18247 |title=Not Southern Scorn but Local Pride: The Origin of the Word Hoosier and Indiana's River Culture |last=Smith |first=Jonathan Clark |journal=[[Indiana Magazine of History]] |date=June 2007 |volume=103 |issue=2 |pages=183&ndash;194 |access-date=2015-08-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150605160618/http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/view/12270/18247 |archive-date=2015-06-05 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

{{anchor|Harry Hoosier|Black Harry}}William Piersen, a history professor at [[Fisk University]], argued for a connection to the [[Methodist]] minister [[Reverend#Methodist|Rev]]. [[Harry Hosier]] ({{c.|lk=no|1750}}–May 1806), who evangelized the American frontier at the beginning of the 19th century as part of the [[Second Great Awakening]]. "Black Harry" had been born a slave in [[North Carolina]] and sold north to [[Baltimore]], [[Maryland]], before gaining his freedom and beginning his ministry around the end of the [[American Revolution]]. He was a close associate and personal friend of [[Bishop (Methodist)|Bishop]] [[Francis Asbury]], the "Father of the American Methodist Church". [[Benjamin Rush]] said of him that "making allowances for his illiteracy, he was the greatest orator in America".<ref name=blah>{{cite magazine |last=Webb |first=Stephen H. |url= http://dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/imh/printable/VAA4025-098-1-a02 |title=Introducing Black Harry Hoosier: The History Behind Indiana's Namesake |magazine=Indiana Magazine of History |volume=XCVIII |date=March 2002 |publisher=Trustees of Indiana University |access-date=October 17, 2013 }} {{dead link|date=April 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes |note=Try http://scholarworks.iu.edu which was used for another citation to the same magazine.}}</ref> His sermons called on Methodists to reject [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]] and to champion the common working man. Piersen proposed that Methodist communities inspired by his example took or were given a variant spelling of his name (possibly influenced by the "yokel" slang<ref name=blah/>) during the decades after his ministry.<ref name="piersenHarryHoosier">{{cite magazine |title=The Origin of the Word "Hoosier": A New Interpretation |last=Piersen |first=William D. |magazine=[[Indiana Magazine of History]] |date=June 1995 |volume=91 |issue=2}} Cited in: {{harvtxt|Graf|2000}}</ref>

According to Washington County newspaper reports of the time,{{when|source is from 1846, after earlier documented usage of Hoosier|Oct22|date=October 2022}} Abraham Stover was Colonel of the Indiana Militia. He was a colorful figure in early Washington County history. Along with his son-in-law, John B. Brough, he was considered one of the two strongest men in Washington County. He was always being challenged to prove his might, and seems to have won several fights over men half his age. After whipping six or eight men in a fist fight in Louisville, Kentucky, he cracked his fists and said, "Ain't I a husher",{{clarify|date=February 2019|reason=What is "husher" supposed to mean?}} which was changed in the news to "Hoosier", and thus originated the name of Hoosier in connection with Indiana men.<ref>''Salem Leader'' newspaper 1846 archive</ref>{{full citation needed|date=February 2019|reason=This isn't a source citation, it's a claim that sources exist somewhere and a refusal to actually cite them.  An archive cite is given with the |via= parameter in citation templates.}}<ref name="WashingtonGiants">{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Harvey |title=Washington County Giants, Indiana Historical Society Publications, Vol 7. No. 8 by Harvey Morris |date=1 December 1921 |journal=Indiana Magazine of History |url=https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/view/6225 |access-date=28 January 2022 |language=en |archive-date=28 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220128150648/https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/view/6225 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Jorge Santander Serrano, a PhD student from [[Indiana University Bloomington|Indiana University]], has also suggested that ''Hoosier'' might come from the [[French language|French]] words for 'redness', {{lang|fr|rougeur}}, or 'red-faced', {{lang|fr|rougeaud}}.<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.idsnews.com/article/2016/11/its-a-rouguer-nation |title=Guest Column: It's a "rouguer" nation? The mystery behind Indiana's favorite nickname |work=Indiana Daily Student |publisher=Indiana University Student Media |access-date=November 2, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161104020917/http://www.idsnews.com/article/2016/11/its-a-rouguer-nation |archive-date=November 4, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> According to this hypothesis, the early pejorative use of the word ''Hoosier'' may have a link to the color red ("rouge" in French) which is associated with [[indigenous peoples]], pejoratively called "red men" or "[[Redskin|red-skins]]", and also with poor white people by calling them "[[Redneck|red-necks]]".

===Folk etymologies===
{{anchor|folklore}}

===="Who'sh 'ere?"====
Humorous [[folk etymology|folk etymologies]] for the term "hoosier" have a long history, as recounted by Dunn in ''The Word Hoosier''.

One account traces the word to the necessary caution of approaching houses on the frontier. In order to avoid being shot, a traveler would call out from afar to let themselves be known. The inhabitants of the [[log cabin|cabin]] would then reply "Who's here?" which {{ndash}} in the [[Appalachian English]] of the early settlers {{ndash}} slurred into "Who'sh 'ere?" and thence into "Hoosier?" A variant of this account had the Indiana pioneers calling out "Who'sh 'ere?" as a general greeting and warning when hearing someone in the bushes and tall grass, to avoid shooting a relative or friend in error.<ref>''The History of Indiana''. Textbook. {{c.|lk=no|1960}}.</ref>

The poet [[James Whitcomb Riley]] facetiously suggested that the fierce brawling that took place in Indiana involved enough biting that the expression "Whose ear?" became notable. This arose from or inspired the story of two 19th-century French immigrants brawling in a tavern in the foothills of southern Indiana. One was cut and a third Frenchman walked in to see an ear on the dirt floor of the tavern, prompting him to slur out "Whosh ear?"<ref name=tri/>

====Mr. Hoosier's men====
[[Image:Portland1850s.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.15|One possible origin of the term "Hoosier" came from the construction of the [[Louisville and Portland Canal]] (1826–1833).]]
Two related stories trace the origin of the term to gangs of workers from Indiana under the direction of a Mr. Hoosier.

The account related by Dunn<ref>{{cite book |last=Dunn |first=Jacob Piatt |title=The Word Hoosier |location=Indianapolis |publisher=Bobbs-Merrill |year=1907 |pages=16–17}} (Indiana Historical Society Publications, Vol. 4, no. 2. 1907.)</ref> is that a Louisville contractor named Samuel Hoosier preferred to hire workers from communities on the Indiana side of the Ohio River like [[New Albany, Indiana|New Albany]] rather than Kentuckians. During the excavation of the [[Louisville and Portland Canal|first canal]] around the [[Falls of the Ohio]] from 1826 to 1833, his employees became known as "Hoosier's men" and then simply "Hoosiers". The usage spread from these hard-working laborers to all of the Indiana boatmen in the area and then spread north with the settlement of the state. The story was told to Dunn in 1901 by a man who had heard it from a Hoosier relative while traveling in southern [[Tennessee]]. Dunn could not find any family of the given name in any directory in the region or anyone else in southern Tennessee who had heard the story and accounted himself dubious. This version was subsequently retold by [[list of Hoosier governors|Gov]].&thinsp;[[Evan Bayh]] and [[list of Hoosier senators|Sen]].&thinsp;[[Vance Hartke]], who introduced the story into the ''[[Congressional Record]]'' in 1975,{{sfnp |Graf |2000}} and matches the timing and location of Smith's subsequent research. However, the [[U.S. Army Corps of Engineers]] has been unable to find any record of a Hoosier or Hosier in surviving canal company records.<ref name=tri>{{cite book |last1=Johnson |first1=Leland R. |last2=Parrish |first2=Charles E. |title=Triumph at the Falls: The Louisville and Portland Canal |page=[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015073593314;view=1up;seq=54 42] |publisher=U.S. Army Corps of Engineers |location=Louisville |year=2007 |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005540031 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211011174458/https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005540031 |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 11, 2021 }}</ref>