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I believe the oyster story could use some editing. "Big city Midwestern hick" strikes me as an oxymoron. I suppose there may some small, finite number of Midwestern hicks that live in a big city, but why not just say "Midwestern hick"? But you probably perceive most Midwesterners to be hicks so that would make that phrase a redundancy. Why not just say "hick"? They grow hicks outside of the Midwest. If you want to specify a regional hick then you could figure out where oysters is pronounced as "eyesters" and use that region, but I don't think it will be the Midwest. I say "yes", negative stereotypes can be hilarious.

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Agreed. An unnecessary imprecision.

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"Rube" in its present use, would have been my choice, assuming there was a choice in retelling the joke. Interesting (for me and two others here...) both "hick" and "rube" originated as nicknames: "hick" for Richard and "rube" for Reuben.

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