美国农民的人数现在越来越少了。一百年前，美国有百分之四十二的人生活在农村。可是，随着城镇的发展和农业机械化，美国农民的人数现在已经下降到只占总人口的百分之二点二。在二十世纪，由于交通、收音机和电视的发展，城市和农村的区别已经在很大程度上消除了。可能正是因为这个原因，农民用来贬低城里人的名词很有限。他们常用的一个是：city slicker。Slick这个字的意思是很滑流。所以，一个city slicker 也就是说话很圆滑，衣着很时髦，但是很可能是一个不老实、不可信任的家伙。
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City slicker, a synonym for fop, is an idiomatic expression for someone accustomed to a city or urban lifestyle and unsuited to life in the country. The term was typically used as a term of derision by rural Americans who regarded them with amusement.
Slicker came from a Western term for an orphaned calf.[1] It referred to the naive nature of people from the Eastern cities. City slicker was derisively given to these Easterners for their assumption that their "book-learnin' " gave them superior intelligence. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century Westerners, particularly cowboys, used the Easterners' perceived snobbish attitudes as justification for playing tricks—sometimes violent tricks—on them.
City slickers appeared often as deceitful characters in U.S. comic strips and movies before the middle of the 20th century, but usually to be "outsmarted" by the native wisdom and common sense of the locals or to somehow otherwise get their just deserts in the end.
The archetypal city slicker is depicted as a spoiled selfish lazy rich person who considers people living on farms to be poor and ignorant. They are depicted as being unaccustomed to hard labour and as a result, tire very easily and complain when working.
The term is seldom used in rural areas today except in a joking manner by which both rural residents and urban visitors may explain missteps.
