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Hoosiers: It's a St. Louis Thing

By AAN Staff
march 31, 2003  06:46 pm
Hoosiers: It's a St. Louis Thing
The meaning of the term "hoosier" has been a matter of debate for centuries. And it seems the more the word is studied, the muddier its definition becomes. "It's absolutely lost any derogatory meaning in Indiana," says Indiana University librarian Jeffrey Graf. St. Louis vernacular suggests otherwise where the term is synonymous with "cheap beer, fast cars and fat girls." Author Thomas E. Murray notes that in St. Louis, "hoosier" occupies "the honored position of being the city's No. 1 term of derogation." The Riverfront Times' Mike Seely dissects the term -- both in St. Louis and in Indiana -- and offers that there may be a little bit of hoosier in all of us, in spite of the term's apparent trashy underpinnings.
View full article at Riverfront Times