Podunk

[Jonathan Lighter]

Can anybody winkle out a few pre-1846 exx. of "Podunk" that do *not* seem to refer to actual localities ?

  Actual "Podunks" are in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Connecticut also has a Podunk Pond and a Podunk River, and there's a Lake Podunk in Maine.  The most notable additional Podunks are probably the two in Michigan.

  But I want figurative Podunks.  The kind defined by Maurice Weseen (1933) as "imaginary typical small town[s] situated in the sticks and inhabited by hicks."

  BTW, the word has morphed from a proper noun and attributive into a plain adjective in the past twenty-five years or so, as in "some podunk country" and "some podunk guy."

  JL


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