Q 01/05

Historically, the word "hillbilly" has been applied to people of Appalachia and which other rural US upland region?

A) The Adirondacks

B) The Ozarks

C) The Black Hills

D) The Poconos

Answer · why

B) The Ozarks

The Ozarks share the label with Appalachia: "hillbilly" historically meant people of America's rural, mountainous areas, and those two regions above a...

Q 02/05

In the Scottish origin story for the word, "billy" meant what?

A) Comrade

B) Hill

C) Whisky

D) Goat

Answer · why

A) Comrade

Comrade: in the Scottish theory 'hill-folk' were people who kept apart from society and 'billy' meant comrade or companion, a sense later applied to C...

Q 03/05

The earliest known printed use of 'hillbilly', in 1892, was in a journal for which industry's workers?

A) Steel

B) Coal mining

C) Textiles

D) Railroads

Answer · why

D) Railroads

Railroads: the earliest known printed use appeared in an 1892 issue of The Railroad Trainmen's Journal; an 1899 photograph labelled 'Camp Hillbilly' f...

Q 04/05

A 1900 New York Journal definition called a "Hill-Billie" a free and untrammeled white citizen of which state?

A) Kentucky

B) West Virginia

C) Alabama

D) Tennessee

Answer · why

C) Alabama

Alabama: the April 1900 New York Journal defined a 'Hill-Billie' as 'a free and untrammelled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills' and 'fi...

Q 05/05

One theory ties the word to Scottish 'hill-folk' Covenanters who followed which Presbyterian preacher?

A) Andrew Melville

B) Richard Cameron

C) Alexander Peden

D) John Knox

Answer · why

B) Richard Cameron

Richard Cameron: the Cameronians, his followers, fled to the hills of southern Scotland in the 1680s to escape persecution; one theory derives 'hillbi...