When writing the Brewington amicus brief, which we filed before the Indiana Supreme Court, I used the term “Indianan” in my first draft. Yes, I’d heard of “Hoosier,” but I thought it was a jocular colloquialism, and “Indianan” was the Proper Dignified Lawyerly Way to say it.
Boy, was I wrong, as Michael Sutherlin, Dan Brewington’s lawyer (who has done an excellent job in the case, ably assisted by his associate Sam Adams), pointed out. Indeed, when I checked on Westlaw, I found only one case in the Indiana Cases database mentioning “Indianan” — and that was a typo. I found 192 cases mentioning “Hoosiers,” even limiting it to the plural so as to avoid various organizational names that contain “Hoosier”; the great bulk of these cases indeed referred to Indiana residents.
Interestingly, outside Indiana state courts and federal district courts the ratio was closer, 9 “Hoosiers” — counting only courts using that term to refer to residents of Indiana — to 7 “Indianans.” But I was filing in an Indiana court, and when in Indianapolis, do as the ….