The Reason We Refer to Motorcycles as ‘Hogs’
Motorcycle culture has added a lot of color to everyday slang, starting with referring to couples as My old lady To be a One percent. One of the most enduring colloquial expressions is to refer to a motorcycle as a pig. One might say: “Ride my pig.” Or “My pig is in the store.” So how do the terms motorcycles and pigs intersect?
The origin of motorcycles as “pigs”
Use pig To describe a means of transportation that has already been around for some time. According to According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it has been in use in print since 1888 to describe a huge freight train. “The ‘hog’ will move nine cars loaded to the top of the heavy Alto, while a regular road engine has a stiff tassel (sic) to move four or five cars,” one person noted. Union or else article that year.
But this early use of slang probably had little to do with what happened next. In the early 1900s, motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson assembled and sponsored a factory racing team. Across the country, bikers were hitting the trails and covering hundreds of miles along the way.
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In 1916 he added a Harley team Ray WeishaarAn outstanding racer It’s called “Kansas Hurricane” who actually won the 100 mile race in Kansas and triumphed over another even though his handlebars broke off during the competition.
In 1920, Weishaar was in Marion, Indiana, to participate in the then Marion International Road Race It is considered The largest in the country. Accounts differ slightly on what happened next. Either he went and Yashar I’m looking For a piglet to keep as a pet once he arrived in town, or a farmer gave him one after winning a race. Either way, Weisshar kept the piglet, which the entire racing team quickly adopted as their mascot.
“A small black harness pig was purchased and installed as the official mascot at the end of a light chain and is fed from a bottle and bathed regularly every other day,” the company wrote. Tribune Leaderwhich also indicated that the pig liked to eat crickets in his “spare time.”
What is indicated Fond Taking the little pig in his arms to achieve victory on his bike. Apparently this led to them becoming Harley riders known As “the pig boys”. This in turn gave way to describing Harley motorcycles as “pigs”. (Little pig name It was either Billy Ray or Johnny. That, or Weishaar had more than one.)
While contemporary sources play up the piglet’s title, it is difficult to find printed references to “pigs” or “pig boys” in the decades that followed. It is entirely possible that the slang migrated to the motorcycle culture of the era rather than to the media in general.
Alternatively, the word “pig” was not used as a synonym for motorcycle for the first time in print until 1965, when Saturday Evening Post “A motorcycle is a pig,” she explained to her obedient readers. Maybe I got an extra boost in the non-fiction novel by Hunter S. Thompson in 1966 about outlaw biker culture, Hell’s Angelsany male “In the language of the bike world, a Harley is a ‘pig,’ and an outlaw bike is a ‘chopped pig.’”
Interestingly, the use of pigs rose in the 1960s for other compounds as well. Used by the US military to refer to aircraft. (“The hog’s cruising speed was 450 knots.”) It has also been used to evoke a 1960s Cadillac, a term that the Oxford English Dictionary traces to the black community. (“Yes, I’ve got a pig… a Cadillac.”)
The pig legend continues
While all pigs were motorcycles in the cycling world, not all motorcycles were pigs. Early on, the pig referred exclusively to Harleys. Now, it can be applied to any type of motorcycle. It was a pig too It was invoked It means a particularly large bike, but this usage seems to have softened as well.
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Pig versus pig |
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Ray Weishaar’s little pig likely raised idiomatic language. But was it a pig or a sow? The best way to explain this is to think of it as a pig in waiting. There is no real physical difference, as sows and sows are the same animal: Homemade pig. Pigs tend to be repotted when their weight exceeds 120 pounds. Before that, they were referred to as pigs, or piglets if they were very small. |
The pig became so ubiquitous with Harleys — and bikes in general — that in 1983, Harley Davidson decided Harley Owners Group, or HOG, as the official organization for motorcycle enthusiasts. In 1999, the company attempted to trademark it as a “hog,” but the attempt was rejected – the term was too generic at that point to be an exclusive Harley domain. (However, HOG as a collective entity was, and remains, a brand.)
The city of Marion is so proud of its status as the birthplace of the slang term that it regularly hosts the Home of the Hog commemorative bike race. And those who want to invest in Harley as a business proposition can find it on the stock ticker with the name – what else – HOG.
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