Dave Barry, Miami Herald
Boy, am I in trouble with the Hoosiers.
"Hoosiers," of course, is what people from Indiana proudly call
themselves, and for an excellent reason, which I will explain shortly.
Unfortunately, I managed to get a batch of Hoosiers very upset
recently,
when I wrote a column about which is the stupidest state.
For the record, I did NOT say that Indiana is the stupidest state. I
believe that many states, including mine, are stupider than Indiana.
What I did say -- and I now realize that I was wrong -- was that
"Hoosier" is a stupid nickname. My argument was that nobody seemed to
know what a "Hoosier" is, so why would you go around calling yourself
one? I stated that, for all we know, "Hoosier" could be a Native
American
word for "has sex with caribou."
Many people wrote in to object, strongly, to that statement, including
one Hoosier who pointed out that -- and it is hard to argue with this
logic -- "Indiana has no caribou." Several Native Americans were also
quite upset, so let me first apologize to them, and state for the
record
that "Hoosier" is NOT a Native American word for "has sex with
caribou."
I am sure there IS no Native American word for "has sex with caribou,"
at
least not referring to residents of Indiana, although I imagine there
might be a Native American term to describe caribou having sex with
other
caribou, and I think we can all agree that this is perfectly proper.
I also wish to apologize to the dozen or so readers who were upset
about
reading the term "sex with caribou" in a family newspaper. I realize
that, in this column, I have already used the term "sex with caribou" a
number of times, but I frankly don't know how else I can explain what I
am apologizing for. But you have my assurance that, as long as I am in
charge of this column, you will not see the term "sex with caribou"
again.
Speaking of having sex with caribou, we turn now to the many irate
Indiana residents who wrote to point out that I am a moron for stating
that nobody knows what "Hoosier" means. According to these people,
EVERYBODY in Indiana knows what "Hoosier" means, and if I had just
bothered to ask a Hoosier, I could have had the simple, well-known
answer, and would not have made such an idiot out of myself.
So to clear this issue up once and for all, here, according to the
letters I received, is what "Hoosier" means: "Hoosier" was the name
of
a contractor who worked on the Ohio River in the early 19th century.
"Hoosier" is a word meaning "highlander" or "hill-dweller."
"Hoosier" is a word referring to anything large of its kind.
"Hoosier" comes from when somebody would knock on a cabin door, and
Indiana people would say, "Who's there?"
"Hoosier" comes from when Indiana people would stand on the riverbank
and shout to people on boats, "Who is ya?"
"Hoosier" comes from when Indiana families would hold big reunions,
and
the mothers, referring to the children, would ask each other "Who's
yours?"
"Hoosier" comes from the aftermath of knife fights in Indiana
taverns,
when somebody would pick up a lump of flesh and say, "Whose ear?"
All of these explanations, which I am not making up, were sent in by
actual Hoosiers. So from now on, when you hear people proudly refer to
themselves as "Hoosiers" you will know exactly what they're referring
to:
an inquisitive, one-eared, hill-dwelling Ohio River contractor, large
for
his kind, who has a lot of trouble with pronunciation but does NOT have
sex with caribou. Who WOULDN'T be proud?!
While most of the irate mail came from Indiana, I did get some letters
from people in other states, objecting to the fact that their state was
not declared the stupidest. James Rose of White Plains, N.Y., pointed
out
that New York has declared an Official State Muffin. Mr. Rose also
noted
that: 'The motto of New York State is 'Excelsior,' which means wood
shavings."
Just leave the prune pickers out of this one.
Riverwind
A-1 