Terrons
The Italians , mainly the inhabitants of northern and central Italy , use the term terrone as a derogatory or even joking term for southern Italians . It means earth eater .
origin
Only since the middle of the 20th century has the term been used disparagingly in its current meaning; Originally it comes from the Italian word for earth terra and has generally referred to a landowner or estate owner since the 17th century. Later the term was mainly used as a denotation of descent.
From the 1960s, after the wave of workers and peasants emigrating to southern Italy in search of work in the industrial north, the term developed in the urban centers into a term with a very derogatory aftertaste for an often uneducated farm worker.
Terrone as a swear word
The designation of the southern Italians as an insult is historically probably due to the fact that only part of the Italian population knew the actual meaning of the word. The Supreme Court has officially recognized in a judgment that this term has an offensive meaning. This epithet is often used to infer negative personal characteristics, mainly ignorance, unwillingness to work, rejection of generally accepted norms and poor personal hygiene. The term has a further meaning as a description of a coarse person without a sense of fashion, behavior or upbringing.
Former Italian national soccer player Gennaro Gattuso also sees this as positive. He says: " To be terrone means to have deep roots, means to cultivate the tradition, never to deny your own culture, to give your son the first name of his grandfather and to have holy respect for the family."