Jon's 1901 "A Dictionary of everyday twentieth century slang"

[Victor Steinbok]

  A couple of minor points on "farmer". The Dutch do know what a
"farmer" is. The soccer/football team from Groningen goes by "the
farmers". The team's and fans' slogan is "Proud to be a farmer!"--not in
Dutch, but in English (I have local insignia to prove it.) On the other
hand, Groningen is the Dutch equivalent of Tennessee or Alabama to a New
Yorker (rural and conservative~Calvinist).

As for "farmer" as an insult, there is a perfectly good "peasant" that
is used either a denomination of something rustic (e.g., peasant bread)
or is, in fact, an insult. AFAIK, there has always been a semantic
distinction between "farmer" and "peasant".

And one more minor thing--among those with whom I have associated in the
past, "bug juice" tended to refer to "red" drinks (Kool Aid, Hawaiian
Punch, Tahitian Treat, etc.) and, less frequently, other "artificially
flavored" drinks in unusual colors (e.g., "grape drink", "watermelon
drink", etc.). Occasionally, this would extend to other similarly
flavored products (e.g., a watermelon-flavored chewing gum would be
referred to as "bug-juice gum"). I do not recall any racial divides in
this terminology, but my sample is not representative. I do recall some
statistical reports from the late 1980s that associated sale and
consumption of most such drinks with Latinos, although I have no
pretense to the ability to recover the data, at this point.

     VS-)

On 7/21/2010 2:57 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> ...
> The JD supplies _Farmer_ "an unsophisticated person; a novice; an
> ignoramus." One time, in Amsterdam in 1961, a GI complained aloud that
> the joint's "girls" weren't speaking in English, thereby preventing
> him from being able to participate in the conversation. One of the
> girls turned to him and replied,
>
> "You want to hear some English? How about this? 'Hat up, _farmer_!'"
>
> In both Germany and Holland, _bauer_ and _boer_, resp., translated by
> the girls as "farmer," was used by them as a pswaydo-insult - a
> foreign word is not a real insult, if, by those at whom it's directed,
> it's regarded primarily as mere noise, even though it's clear from
> context that the "noise" isn't being used as a compliment.
>
> IAC, the similar use of English _farmer_ by both the girls in 1961 and
> the JD in 1901 is most likely a complete coincidence. ;-)
> ...

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