"Why, boss," said the hoosier, "I wur jest a thinkin' ef I'd seed you out in the woods, with all that har on, they would a been the d—dest runnin' done by this 'coon ever seen in them diggins—you're ekill to the elephant! and a leetle the haryest small man I've seen scart up lately."
Unfortunately, however, not many writers were familiar with the double use of the word, and the distinction has gradually died out, while persistent assertions that the word was coined to designate Indiana people have loaded on them all the odium for the significance that the word has anywhere.
The real problem of the derivation of the word "hoosier," is not a question of the origin of a word formed to designate the State of Indiana and its people, but of the origin of a slang term widely in use in the South, signifying an uncouth rustic. There seems never to have been any attempt at a rational philological derivation, unless we may so account Mr. Charles G. Leland's remarks in Barriere and Leland's "Dictonary of Slang, Jargon and Cant," which are as follows:
Hoosier (American). A nickname given to natives of Indiana. Bartlett cites from the Providence journal a story which has the appearance of being an after-manufacture to suit the name, deriving hoosier from "husher—from their primary capacity to still their opponents." He also asserts that the Kentuckians maintained that the nickname expresses the exclamation of an Indianian when he knocks at a door and exclaims "Who's yere?" However, the word originally was not hoosier at all, but hoosieroon, or hoosheroon, hoosier being an abbreviation of this. I can remember that in 1834, having read of hoosiers, and spoken of them a boy from the West corrected me, and said that the word was properly hoosieroon. This would indicate a Spanish origin.
The source of Mr. Leland's error is plain. "Hoosieroon" was undoubtedly coined by Mr. Finley to designate a Hoosier child, and what the boy probably told Mr. Leland was that the name to apply properly to him would be Hoosieroon. But that alone would not dispose wholly of the Spanish suggestion, for "oon" or "on" is not only a Spanish ending, but is a Spanish diminutive indicating blood relation. In reality, however, Mr. Finley did not understand Spanish, and the ending was probably suggested to him by quadroon and octoron, which, of course, were in general use. There is no Spanish word that would give any suggestion of "hoosier." The only other language of continental Europe that could be looked to for its origin would be French, but there is no French word approaching it except, perhaps, "huche," which means a kneading trough, and there is no probability of derivation from that.
In fact, "hoosier" carries Anglo-Saxon credentials. It is Anglo-Saxon in form and Anglo-Saxon in ring. If it came from any foreign language, it has been thoroughly anglicized. And in considering its derivation it is to be remembered that the Southerners have always had a remarkable faculty for creating new words and modifying old ones. Anyone who has noted the advent of "snollygoster" in the present generation, or has read Longstreet's elucidation of "fescue," "abisselfa," and "anpersant"[[11]] will readily concede that. And in this connection it is to be observed that the word "yahoo" has long been in use in Southern slang, in almost exactly the same sense as "hoosier," and the latter word may possibly have developed from its last syllable. We have a very common slang word in the North—"yap"—with the same signification, which may have come from the same source, though more probably from the provincial English "yap," to yelp or bark. "Yahoo" is commonly said to have been coined by Swift, but there is a possibility that it was in slang use in his day.
It is very probable that the chief cause of the absence of conjectures of the derivation of "Hoosier" from an English stem was the lack in our dictionaries of any word from which it could be supposed to come, and it is a singular fact that in our latest dictionaries—the Standard and the Century—there appears the word "hoose," which has been in use for centuries in England. It is used now to denote a disease common to calves, similar to the gapes in chickens, caused by the lodgement of worms in the throat. The symptons of this disease include staring eyes, rough coat with hair turned backward, and hoarse wheezing. So forlorn an aspect might readily suggest giving the name "hooser" or "hoosier" to an uncouth, rough-looking person. In this country, for some reason, this disease has been known only by the name of the worm that causes it—"strongylus micrurus"—it sounds very much like "strangle us marcus" as the veterinarians pronounce it—but in England "hoose" is the common name. This word is from a very strong old stem. Halliwell, in his "Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words," gives "hooze" and "hoors," and states that "hoos" occurs in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," and "hoozy" in the "Cornwall Glossary," the latter being used also in Devonshire. Palmer, in his "Folk-Etymology," says that "hoarst—a Lincolnshire word for a cold on the chest, as if that which makes one hoarse," is a corruption of the Old English "host," a cough, Danish "hoste," Dutch "hoeste," Anglo-Saxon "hweost," a wheeziness; and refers to Old English "hoose," to cough, and Cleveland "hooze," to wheeze. Descriptions of the effect of hoose on the appearance of animals will be found in Armatage's "Cattle Doctor," and in the "Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland," fourth series, Vol. 10, at page 206.
There is also a possibility of a geographical origin for the word, for there is a coast parish of Cheshire, England, about seven miles west of Liverpool, named Hoose. The name probably refers to the cliffs in the vicinity, for "hoo," which occurs both in composition and independently in old English names of places, is a Saxon word signifying high. However, this is an obscure parish, and no especial peculiarity of the people is known that would probably give rise to a distinctive name for them.
There is one other possibility that is worthy of mention—that the word may come to us through England from the Hindoo. In India there is in general use a word commonly written "huzur," which is a respectful form of address to persons of rank or superiority. In "The Potter's Thumb" Mrs. Steel writes it "hoozur." Akin to it is "housha," the title of a village authority in Bengal. It may seem impossible that "hoosier" could come from so far off a source, and get it is almost certain that our slang word "fakir," and its derivative verb "fake," came from the Hindoo through England, whither for many years people of all classes have been returning from Indian service. It is even more certain that the word "khaki" was introduced from India, and passed into general use in English and American nurseries long before khaki-cloth was known to us.
As a matter of fact, words pass from one language to another in slang very readily. For example, throughout England and America a kidnapper is said in thieves' slang to be "on the kinchin lay," and it can scarcely be questioned that this word is direct from the German "kindchen." The change in meaning from "huzur" to "hoosier" would be explicable by the outlandish dress and looks of the Indian grandees from a native English standpoint, and one might naturally say of an uncouth person, "He looks like a huzur."