Crackers/Honkey

Honky, an African American slang term for a white person, dates to at least 1946. The origin is not quite certain, but it is most likely a dialectical variation on the older term hunky or hunk. This latter terms date to 1909 and 1896 respectively and are probably from Hungarian. Unlike honky, the latter terms are usually used to denote people of Slavic or Central European ancestry and are not primarily used by African Americans.

Also related are hunyak or honyock, which date to c.1907 and are probably compounds of Hun[garian] + [Pol]ack.

All the terms are used contemptuously.

Throughout the American South, poor, white trash are referred to as crackers. The most common explanation for the origin of this phrase is that it is from corncracker, or someone who distills corn whiskey (cracking corn is to crush it into a mash for distillation). The song lyric Jimmy Crack Corn is a reference to this. In the song, a slave sings about how his master was thrown from his horse when it was bitten by a blue-tail fly, hit his head, and died. And the slave "don't care." (This was a pretty subversive song for its day.) This is not, however, the origin of the ethnic term cracker. The term corncracker is first attested to only in 1835, well after cracker was established as a term for a white man.

Another common false etymology is that the term comes from the crack of a whip. This tale has the origin in white overseers of slaves, or "whipcrackers," who brutalized their charges. Again, this explanation has no evidence to support it.

Instead, cracker comes from an old sense of crack meaning to boast. This sense dates to the 15th century and is still in dialectical use, mainly Scots, in Britain. A 1766 quote in the OED2 gives the origin of cracker as boastful.