There has been some confusion as of late over the term “Redneck” I remembered hearing the possible etymology of the term and decided to look it up. Here are two of the oldest references of the word taken from en.wikipedia.org

1. Possible Scots-Irish etymologies: The National Covenant and The Solemn League and Covenant (a.k.a. Covenanters) signed documents stating that Scotland desired a Presbyterian Church Government, and rejected the Church of England as their official church (no Anglican congregation was ever accepted as the official church In Scotland). What the Covenanters rejected was episcopacy — rule by bishops — the preferred form of church government in England. Many of the Covenanters signed these documents using their own blood, and many in the movement began wearing red pieces of cloth around their neck to signify their position to the public. They were referred to as “Rednecks.” Large numbers of these Scottish Presbyterians migrated from their lowland Scottish home to Ulster (the northern province of Ireland) during the 17th century and soon settled in considerable numbers in North America throughout the 18th century. Some emigrated directly from Scotland to the American colonies in the late 18th and early 19th-centuries as a result of the Lowland Clearances. This etymological theory holds that since many Scots-Irish Americans and Scottish Americans who settled In Appalachia and the South were Presbyterian, the term was bestowed upon them and their descendants.

2. Possible American etymologies: A popular etymology says that the term derives from such individuals having a red neck caused by working outdoors in the sunlight over the course of their lifetime. The effect of decades of direct sunlight on the exposed skin of the back of the neck not only reddens fair skin, but renders It leathery and tough, and typically very wrinkled and spotted by late middle age. Similarly, some historians claim that the term redneck originated in 17th century Virginia, because indentured servants were sun burnt while tending plantation crops.

I hope you found this as interesting as I did.

P.S. Keep up the good work Andru!

Larry Schnell, Valemount