116: cracker Apr 3, 2015

Hello everyone. Today's word is 'cracker'. This word has several meanings, two of which; the teller of a joke, and the derogatory term, are what Word Facts will cover for today. The word 'cracker', in terms of a low-class white-person, comes from the crack of a whip, which came from the first cowboys in America, in Florida, when the Spanish brought cows to the New World. This word, in the sense of "cracking jokes", was first used by Shakespeare in King John II, "what cracker is this same that deafs our ears with this abundance of superfluous breath?".