Podunk, America

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Dawn from Richardson, Texas.

Hello, Dawn. Welcome.

Thank you.

What can we do for you?

Well, I have a question about a term that’s used.

I’m in Texas, and the term is podunk.

Should I use it in a sentence?

Oh, yes, please.

Okay.

Well, you know my friend, she’s from Podunk, Louisiana.

So it means like backwoods or kind of a small town.

But I don’t know where it comes from, and I was really curious about that.

And why are you so curious about it?

Because I say it, and I don’t know where it comes from, and I really don’t want to offend anybody.

All the Podunkians.

Yeah, but it’s an interesting term. I’ve never seen it written down.

But I love the way it sounds because it sounds like what it is to me.

Exactly.

Right. And how is it to you? What kind of town is Podunk?

Kind of small, quiet, kind of far away from, you know, a city.

I don’t know. I don’t want to be insulting, so I’ll stop there.

A little backwoods, one whistle stop town with the mayor who’s also the barber, the sheriff, and the trash collector, right?

There you go. That’s great.

Podunk has a long history in American English.

It ultimately probably comes from an American Indian word, and you can find early mentions of it in the 1600s.

Oh.

Yeah, it was the name of a tribe that at the time lived around what is now Hartford in Connecticut.

And then it existed.

People knew about the Podunk Indians.

They moved on.

Other things happened.

And then it really came into its own as a term for a small town in 1846, when a columnist for a Buffalo newspaper wrote a series of newspaper columns about life in the small town of Podunk.

And he didn’t really say where this Podunk was.

And so, of course, these columns were reprinted in newspapers across the country.

And immediately, Podunk caught on as this generic term for some small city somewhere that’s a little bucolic and a little square and not very cosmopolitan at all.

And that was really the big launching point of it.

So by 1943, it was permanently fixed into American English as this kind of catch-all term.

It’s kind of like the thingamajig of places, you know?

It’s just the kind of random place name for it when you speak generically about a place that might have certain characteristics.

Oh, I love that.

Yeah, it’s cool, right, that it has such a long history.

And, of course, it’s used in other English varieties, too.

They use it now in the U.K., which I think is pretty funny.

Oh, really?

So it’s crossed over the Atlantic.

It’s one of those words that they’re not going to complain too much about because it’s got its purposes.

Well, Dawn, I hope that helps.

Oh, that does. I just love that. Now I’m going to use it even more.

Yeah. You know, by the way, it is safe. You’re not going to offend anyone.

No, that’s good.

If you speak to the mayor of a small town somewhere in Texas and say that, thanks for welcoming to your little podunk, he’ll be offended.

But in general, as long as you don’t call a specific town a podunk, you’ll be fine.

The podunk American community isn’t going to come after you.

Okay, good.

Yeah, the Podunkians, though, they have a vigorous chamber of commerce.

You’ll hear from him.

That’s great.

Well, thanks so much.

Hey, Don, thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Cool stuff.

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