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Hogtown
DCHP-3 (May 2024)
Spelling variants:Hog Town, hogtown;
n. — informal, derogatory, now rare
a nickname for Toronto, ON.
Type: 1. Origin — Toronto was a 19th-century centre for pork processing, but it seems that this originally derogatory name was applied to Toronto by outsiders who accused Torontonians of taking everything unto themselves (see the 1895 and 1898 quotations). The term may now be used jocularly or with affection by local residents.
Quotations
1895
The benefit to the Northwest by such a revolution is incalculable, but unfortunately in this scheme Toronto does not figure, and therefore Toronto is opposed to it. That city has been well named Hogtown. It wants its share and all other shares going, and when it cannot get what it wants it becomes through its press abusive and slanderous.
1898
In the smaller cities of the Province when a man wants to say nasty things about Toronto he calls it Hogtown. The remark originally had not relation at all to our friend the hog, but was merely intended to convey an impression that the citizens of Toronto were porcine in their tendencies and had their fore feet in anything that was worth having.
1922
The epithet of Hogtown, thrown at Toronto by thoughtless or ill-nature critics, was never less deserved than it is today. This city, instead of monopolizing the trough of Governmental favor, has been scandalously treated for many years by the Federal authorities and the heads of the great railway corporations.
1945
Today's best bet on the football fronts: Even money (if you can get it) one of the three Toronto teams represents Eastern Canada in the Grey Cup Final.
Hints of a Hogtown harvest were plentiful even before the East reached the week-end's approximate half-way mark in scheduled competition. Indians set the Ontario Union pace from the start and Argos had a half-share of the Big Four lead.
1965
This, then, is [...] his image [...] a cocky, loud-mouthed, Baptist-baiting, overpaid old blowhard from Hogtown.
1974
I wonder if anyone really knows the derivation of the appellation, Hogtown. I have only the glimmer of an idea, and it's a cinch D. M. Street (letter, April 16) of Ottawa has no idea at all.
I remember once hearing the name arose because Toronto, back in the days when its sports teams competed regularly with teams from smaller Ontario centres, would lure all the best players with money. We hogged the best players hence the name. Marc Lalonde no doubt will see to it that we are not permitted to do this in future.
1999
Environment Canada has topped its annual list of weather stories with the massive snowstorm that hit Toronto in January.
You know, the storm some Hogtown media types insisted on calling "the snowstorm of the century."
Or, as many Montrealers called it, "the feel-good story of the year."
2008
Things looked dire for the front end of my vintage Honda Prelude SR-V as the coupe kept sliding toward the rear end of an immobile Chevrolet Avalanche.
Finally, Michelin rubber gripped Hogtown asphalt. And just in time, too. Had my '93 'Lude sported another coat of Brittany Blue-Green Metallic, a collision would've surely ensued. And, clearly, I would've been at fault.