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From: wyse@ihuxq.UUCP (Neal C. Wyse)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Strange License Plates in Indiana
Message-ID: <581@ihuxq.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 2-Feb-84 13:09:17 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxq.581
Posted: Thu Feb  2 13:09:17 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 8-Feb-84 01:26:03 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
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>	I've always wondered just what "Hoosier" means.  If you look it up
>	in Webster's you get "a native of Indiana".  I guess a better question
>	is "What is the etiology of the word 'Hoosier' ?"

Al McGuire (sp?), the former basketball coach and currently sports
commentator for NBC college basketball once gave a story about how "Hoosier"
came about.  I don't remember the exact details, but it had something to do
with a bar room brawl in which a partipicants ear was bitten off and lost.
That night or the next day, when the ear was found, the finder asked:

	Who's ear?

which eventually evolved to Hoosier.

One could also comment on the spelling ability of people from Indiana in order
to get "Hoosier" from "Who's ear." ;-)
I have to believe that this was something he made up, but who knows.


		Neal Wyse
		ihnp4!ihuxq!wyse