Peasant?

[hpst@earthlink.net]

Off the top of my head a few other words for rural people:

villain, churl, clown, farmer, pagan, clodhopper, shit kicker, peckerwood,
sharecropper, ploughboy, hillbilly, redneck, hick, etc.

A friend of mine once made a list of dozens of terms all of which express
the contempt urban dwellers had for those who lived outside urban areas. It
is damned near a cultural universal. If he still has his list I will put it
up here.

When I grew up in southern Illinois we used to call anyone who lived
outside our magnificent city -- population 10,000 -- farmer the word quite
often being preceded by "goddamn" or we might say, "He's only a goddamn
farmer."

Page Stephens

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