"Pennsyltucky" is a slang

Slang

Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...

 portmanteau used to characterize— usually humorously, but sometimes deprecatingly— the rural and exurban part of the state of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 outside the Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

 and Philadelphia metropolitan area

Metropolitan area

The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metropolitan area usually encompasses multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships,...

s, more specifically applied to the mountainous central region.

Explanation

At times the term is used to describe all of Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The word is a portmanteau constructed from "Pennsylvania" and "Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

", implying a similarity between the rural parts of the two states. It can be used in either a pejorative

Pejorative

Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...

 or an affection

Affection

Affection or fondness is a "disposition or rare state of mind or body" that is often associated with a feeling or type of love. It has given rise to a number of branches of philosophy and psychology concerning: emotion ; disease; influence; state of being ; and state of mind...

ate sense.

This term is interchangeable with the slang term "The T", used primarily in political circles (e.g., "Winning the T"), because of the shape of the area of Pennsylvania when excluding Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. "The T" is considered a more politically correct

Political correctness

Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...

 term than "Pennsyltucky" when referring to potential voters without so openly insulting them.

Philadelphia in the southeast corner and Pittsburgh in the southwest corner are urban manufacturing centers, with the "t-shaped" remainder of the state being much more rural and diverse; this dichotomy affects state politics and culture as well as the state economy. Exceptions include such smaller metropolitan areas as the Lehigh Valley

Lehigh Valley

The Lehigh Valley, known officially by the United States Census Bureau as the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ metropolitan area and referred to locally as The Valley and A-B-E, is a metropolitan region consisting of Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, and Carbon counties in eastern Pennsylvania and...

.

History

The term Pennsyltucky can be traced back over a century. Many of the earlier uses appear to be humorous references to a fictitious state. For example, Pennsyltucky is the name of the ship in the 1942 Popeye

Popeye

Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929...

 cartoon "Baby Wants a Bottleship". By the 1970s, the term clearly referred to rural Pennsylvania, as evidenced by country music star Jeannie Seely

Jeannie Seely

Jeannie Seely is an American country music singer and Grand Ole Opry star. She is best-known for her 1966 Grammy award-winning Country hit, "Don't Touch Me", which peaked at No...

's 1972 single, "A Farm in Pennsyltucky" about her childhood home in northwestern Pennsylvania. Also in 1972, Richard Elman

Richard Elman

Richard Elman was a novelist, poet, journalist, and teacher. He was born in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were Yiddish-speaking and came to this country at the turn of the 20th century from Russo-Poland. His boyhood is captured in his comic novel Fredi & Shirl & The Kids: An Autobiography In...

 writes in his semi-autobiographical Fredi & Shirl & The Kids that the character Fredi refers to all of Appalachia

Appalachia

Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...

 as Pennsyltucky.

The modern popularization of the term, however, is commonly associated with Democratic political consultant James Carville

James Carville

Chester James Carville, Jr. is an American political consultant, commentator, educator, actor, attorney, media personality, and prominent liberal pundit. Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill...

, famed for his work on the victorious campaigns of Robert Casey, Sr.

Robert P. Casey

Robert Patrick "Bob" Casey, Sr. was an American politician from Pennsylvania. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 42nd Governor of Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1995...

 of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 in 1986 and Presidential candidate Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 in 1992

Bill Clinton presidential campaign, 1992

Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign for President of the United States was a critical turning point for the Democratic Party, which had controlled the White House for only four of the previous twenty-four years. Initially viewed as an unlikely prospect to win his party's nomination, Clinton did so and...

. Carville's original statement, however, did not speak of "Pennsyltucky". In 1992 he said: