cracker

[Baker, John]

        From the OED:

        >>A contemptuous name given in southern States of N. America to the 'poor whites'; whence, familiarly, to the native whites of Georgia and Florida. Also attrib.
According to some, short for CORN-CRACKER; but early quots. leave this doubtful.

1766 G. COCHRANE Let. 27 June (D.A.), I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode. 1767 N.Y. Mercury 21 Sept., in Mag. Amer. Hist. (1878) II. 250 A number of people called Crackers, who live above Augusta, in the province of Georgia, had gone in a hostile manner to..Okonee. 1784 Lond. Chron. No. 4287 Maryland, the back settlements of which colony had since the peace been greatly disturbed by the inroads of that hardy banditti well known by the name of Crackers. 1850 LYELL 2nd Visit U.S. II. 73 Sometimes..my host would be of the humblest class of 'crackers', or some low, illiterate German or Irish emigrants. 1856 OLMSTED Slave States 548 The operatives in the cotton-mills are said to be mainly 'Cracker girls' (poor whites from the country). 1887 Beacon (Boston) 11 June, The word Cracker..is supposed to have been suggested by their cracking whips over oxen or mules in taking their cotton to the market. 1888 Harper's Mag. July 240 They will live like the crackers of Georgia or the moonshiners of Tennessee.<<

John Baker


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Beverly Flanigan [SMTP:flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU]
> Sent: Monday, March 11, 2002 2:49 PM
> To:   ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:           cracker
>
> I'm forwarding a comment on "cracker," as in Southern cracker, from a
> student whose father is a self-proclaimed Florida cracker.  We may have
> discussed this before, and I don't have DARE handy, but is there anything
> to Bob Vila's etymology for the term?
>
> >...
> >Speaking of my dad, he always told me he was a "piney woods Florida
> >cracker," but
> >he couldn't tell me why the word "cracker" came to be.  I heard the story
> >the other
> >day, from Bob Vila, of all people.  He was in Florida working on a house
> >called a
> >"cracker cottage" and said that the name "cracker" came from the fact that
> >many
> >poor whites who moved to Florida were cattle drivers (ranching in
> >Florida?) and
> >were called "crackers" because of the sound their whips made when they
> >were coming
> >along the road.  Interesting, huh?
> >...
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _____________________________________________
> Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
> Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
> Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
> http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm
>