Kentucky
37.5000°N -85.0000°W · Q1603
2 English words in this atlas trace back to Kentucky. It sits in United States.
Almost every one of them was made in Pennsylvania.
German-trained gunsmiths in Lancaster County and elsewhere in Pennsylvania developed the long rifle through the 18th century, and collectors still argue for the name Pennsylvania rifle. The Kentucky label stuck after the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 and the popular song that celebrated the riflemen who fought there.
One consonant swap turns a state's name into a verdict on the state.
The name cuts the middle out of Kentucky and puts suck in its place, so that the word reads as Ken-sucky. Wiktionary labels it slang, derogatory and humorous. Dated uses from 2007 onward come mostly from rival college basketball fans, who aim it at the University of Kentucky as readily as at the state, and it also attaches to individual towns, as in Boring Green, Kensucky.