Oh yeah. I almost forgot. Never call a “redneck” a hillbilly and never call a “hillbilly” a redneck. Rules of the road.
“Never call a ‘redneck’ a hillbilly and never call a hillbilly’ a redneck.”
Why is that? To me, both are salt-of-the-earth people. If there’s a distinction, I’ve never heard that, even living here in TN.
Nobody should be calling anyone a redneck. It is a racial slur.
The only exception would be that Caucasians can call other Caucasians redneck.
I remember when I was at Fort Sam Houston n 1970, a guy in my barracks called me a hillbilly and I called him a hippy. We agreed with each others accusation.
Redneck is a term that came out of the Civil War.
Redneck was what Union sergeants would call the recruits who were farmers and people with rural backgrounds.
Peckerwood has an identical meaning but it was what Rebel sergeants would call the recruits who were farmers and people with rural backgrounds.
It appears to be a Mason-Dixon line thing.
Let me guess. Rednecks will date their cousins, but don’t marry them?
Ha. On the Netflix show “Ozark” there are a family of hillbilly criminals that kill a big drug kingpin they were about to make a huge deal with just because he called them “rednecks”. Kind of shot themselves in the foot, but they just couldn’t let that slide!
When spoken by most people these words are intended as a slur, pretty much the equivalent of calling someone a n****r, except it's targeted toward white people and it's still politically correct.
If push comes to shove, I'm not really a hillbilly although I live in hills of Knoxville (such as they are), but if you want to call me a redneck hillbilly (or vice-versa), I will accept the compliment.
Most West Virginians consider hillbilly to be a derogatory term. Of course you can call me a hillbilly if you want, but if I don’t like you I suggest you don’t.