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Stereotype

In England, yokels are traditionally depicted as wearing the old West Country farmhand's dress of straw hat and white smock, chewing or sucking a piece of straw and carrying a pitchfork or rake, listening to Scrumpy and Western music. Yokels are portrayed as living in rural areas of Britain such as the Yorkshire Dales, the West Country, Wales, St Helens (where the term woollyback is more likely to apply) or East Anglia. English yokels speak a country dialect from some part of England.

Yokels are depicted as straightforward and simple, and they are easily deceived as they fail to see through false pretenses. For an example of a yokel laugh see Rebecca Dallas.

Yokels are also depicted as talking about bucolic topics like cows, sheep, goats, wheat, alfalfa, fields, crops, tractors, and buxom wenches to the exclusion of all else and don't seem to be aware of or at least show interest in the world outside of their own surroundings.

Etymology

The word may derive either from a comic mispronunciation of the word 'local', from a dialect word 'yokel' meaning 'woodpecker' or from the Somerset word 'yogel' meaning 'owl', owls being common in Somerset.

Usage

The development of television brought many previously isolated communities into mainstream British culture in the 1950s and 1960s. The Internet continues this integration, further eroding the town/country divide. In the 21st century British country folk are less frequently seen as yokels. In British TV Show The Two Ronnies, it was asserted that despite political correctness, it is possible to poke fun at yokels as nobody sees themselves as being one.

Origins of "hick"

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term is a "by-form" of the personal name Richard (like Dick) and Hob (like Bob) for Robert. Although the English word "hick" is of recent vintage, distinctions between urban and rural dwellers are ancient.

According to a popular etymology derives from the nickname "Old Hickory" for Andrew Jackson, one of the first Presidents of the United States to come from rural hard-scrabble roots. This nickname suggested that Jackson was tough and enduring like an old Hickory tree. Jackson was particularly admired by the residents of remote and mountainous areas of the United States, people who would come to be known as "hicks."

Though not a term explicitly denoting lower class, some argue that the term degrades impoverished rural people and that "hicks" continue as one of the few groups that can be ridiculed and stereotyped with impunity. In "The Redneck Manifesto," Jim Goad argues that this stereotype has largely served to blind the general population to the economic exploitation of rural areas, specifically in Appalachia, the South, and parts of the Midwest.

Further information

Famous fictional yokels

The Beverly Hillbillies
Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel, a character from The Simpsons.
The name of the villain in the film Cars is Chick Hicks, a trash-talking southern anthropomorphized car.
The Yokels portaryed by Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett in The Two Ronnies.
The nurse in South Pacific describes herself as a "hick" from Little Rock, Arkansas.
Ross Lloyd-Butler also known as "Inman" in Cold Mountain is a notorious hick
Niko Bellic (according to Vlad)in Grand Theft Auto 4.
In All the King's Men, Willie Stark often uses the word hick in his speeches to describe the poor voters and himself, for being fooled by the elite. He calls upon them to vote for him, promising them to be the voice of the hicks.