Tag: honyocker, hon-yocker, homesteader
From H. L. Mencken, Supplement Two, The American Language, p. 216, "The Pronunciation of American" in which Mencken goes state-by-state. For South Dakota, he writes:
The glossary of South Dakota terms in the volume on the State in the American Guide Series is headed "language of the West," and in it there is evidence that the local speech differs but little from that of the adjoining States.
There are separate lists of farmers', prospectors', cowmen's and sheepmen's words and phrases, and at the end a brief section of ''General Terms." The latter includes nothing has not been reported elsewhere save honyock, a homesteader, apparently a derivative of hony, an old American term for a poor white.
Carl mentioned that word honyocker often to me; he pronounced it, hon-yocker. Apparently that made a huge impression on him. His parents were homesteaders and the local South Dakota population must have reminded him and his family often they were homesteaders / hon-yockers.
I do not know if that was derisive. I don't see why it should be. [Yes, originally it was derisive. See below.]
From the chatbot, Google's Gemini:
