hillbillies

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

For an article on the origin of "hillbilly" there's Jack Morgan's "'King Billy' (William of Orange) in hillbilly,"
in Studies in Slang, Part IV (= Forum Anglicum, vol. 21; edited by Gerald Leonard Cohen), Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995, p. 99.  Morgan's article reports on information found in Ian Adamson's _The Identity of Ulster_ (Belfast: Pretani Press, 1982).
 
Gerald Cohen

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Original message to American Dialect Society on behalf of Jonathan Lighter, Tue 6/9/2009 5:51 PM

The History Channel tells us, in program about Dublin, that Irish
Protestants were known as "Billy Boys."  Then, it says, "the word was
changed to 'hillbillies' and was applied to Irish immigrants to America,"

I kid ye not.

JL

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