Week of April 7, 2013 - Honky-Tonk, A Study in Words

By Joan Whetzel

Honky-Tonk is another one of those words that I’ve run into that has continued to intrigue me because I love the sound of it. The word brings up images of  a smoky saloon; beer drinking; rednecks wearing jeans, alligator cowboy boots and a goat-roper shirt; women with big hair, denim skirts, and lots of makeup;  and walls covered with neon signs. A juke box in the corner plays country western music and the weekend band on stage croons all the top hits made popular by the current country stars. Couples dance the two-step or step out on the dance floor with a little line dancing. These are the modern images of the honky-tonk that have evolved from its origins.

Definition

Honkey-tonk is defined as a cheap noisy bar or a dance hall. No surprise there. It’s also defined as anything relating to such a bar or dance hall; anything related to the ragtime usually played on an old piano with the tin sound that that has been  played in a honky-tonk; or, as a verb, the act of visiting these dance halls.

What Is a Honky-Tonk?

Honky-tonks have always been the type of bar that offer their patrons musical entertainment. The Fort Worth Daily Gazette published a story in 1989 about a petition to the council to have the Main Street Honky Tonk reopened, suggesting that Honky Tonk was the actual name of the theater. Other print references for honky tonks describe similar theaters and bars found along the cattle drive trials between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas and into Oklahoma, and so the term –and its art form - may have spread by cowboys as they drove their cattle to market. In fact, the word honky-tonk may have derived from the sound of the music as it was played on those tinny sounding pianos as well as the brand name of those pianos (“Tonk”) which evolved into the honky-tonk bars. The lines are often blurred between these honky-tonks and saloons or dancehalls. Eventually the theater style honky-tonk disappeared, and the honky-tonk evolved into the lower class bars, or beer joints, that catered to men.  While beer was the main beverage of choice in honky-tonks, hard liquor was also saved – a tradition that continues to this day.

Synonyms for Honky-tonk

bar, barroom, cocktail lounge, taproom, tavern pub, pothouse, alehouse, rum shop, grogshop, dram shop, groggery, gin mill, saloon, drinking saloon, lounge bar, piano bar, waterhole, watering hole, public house, beer parlor, beer garden, nightclub, cabaret, café, wine shop, barrel house, speakeasy, afterhours joint

References

Wikipedia. Honky-Tonk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honky_tonk

American Heritage Dictionary. Honky-Tonk.

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/honky-tonk

Roget's Thesaurus. Honky-Tonk. Fifth Edition. New York: Harpers Collins Publishing, 1992.