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Yokel


Yokel is one of several derogatory terms referring to the stereotype of unsophisticated country people. The term is of uncertain etymology and is only attributed from the early 19th century.

In the United States, the term is used to describe someone living in rural areas. Synonyms for yokel include bubba, country bumpkin, hayseed, chawbacon, rube, redneck, hillbilly, and hick.

In the UK, 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 West Country, East Anglia, the Yorkshire Dales and Wales. British yokels speak with country dialects from various parts of Britain.

Yokels are depicted as straightforward, simple and naive, and easily deceived, failing to see through false pretenses. They 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. Broadly, they are portrayed as unaware of or uninterested in the world outside their own surroundings.

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 people are less frequently seen as yokels. In the British TV Show The Two Ronnies, it was asserted that despite political correctness, it is possible to poke fun at yokels as no-one sees themselves as being one.


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