Hoosier

Hoosier /ˈhuːʒər/ is the official demonym for a resident of the U.S. state of Indiana. The origin of the term remains a matter of debate within the state, but "Hoosier" was in general use by the 1840s, having been popularized by Richmond resident John Finley's 1833 poem "The Hoosier's Nest". Anyone born in Indiana or a resident at the time is considered to be a Hoosier. Indiana adopted the nickname "The Hoosier State" more than 150 years ago.

"Hoosier" is used in the names of numerous Indiana-based businesses and organizations. "Hoosiers" is also the name of the Indiana University athletic teams and seven active and one disbanded athletic conferences in the Indiana High School Athletic Association have the word "Hoosier" in their name. As there is no accepted embodiment of a Hoosier, the IU schools are represented through their letters and colors alone. In addition to universal acceptance by residents of Indiana, the term is also the official demonym according to the U.S. Government Publishing Office. On January 12, 2017, the Federal Government officially changed the nickname of people from the state of Indiana from "Indianans" to "Hoosiers", making Indiana the first state to not have a version of their state name in their nickname ("Illinoisans", "Texans", etc.).

In addition to "The Hoosier's Nest", the term also appeared in the Indianapolis Journal's "Carrier's Address" on January 1, 1833. There are many suggestions for the derivation of the word, but none is universally accepted.

In 1900, Meredith Nicholson wrote The Hoosiers, an early attempt to study the etymology of the word as applied to Indiana residents. Jacob Piatt Dunn, longtime secretary of the Indiana Historical Society, published The Word Hoosier, a similar attempt, in 1907. Both chronicled some of the popular and satirical etymologies circulating at the time and focused much of their attention on the use of the word in the Upland South to refer to woodsmen, yokels, and rough people. Dunn traced the word back to the Cumbrian hoozer, meaning anything unusually large, derived from the Old English hoo (as at Sutton Hoo), meaning "high" and "hill". The importance of immigrants from northern England and southern Scotland was reflected in numerous placenames including the Cumberland Mountains, the Cumberland River, and the Cumberland Gap. Nicholson defended the people of Indiana against such an association, while Dunn concluded that the early settlers had adopted the nickname self-mockingly and that it had lost its negative associations by the time of Finley's poem.

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