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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Being niggardly with language
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
So over in the hell thread "Difficult relatives", a rather large tangent has emerged regarding the word "niggardly".
LilBuddha poses the following question:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
* agree, but who in the last, * don't know [* ]** years,[/* ] would use niggardly without thinking about the word nigger? At [* ]best[/* ] it demonstrates a profound lack of social awareness.
The very reason that the words are conflated is the same which should temper its use.
My answer would be that * would no more think of the word "nigger" when using the word "niggardly" than * would think of the word "whore" when using the word "hornpipe", and whilst neither "niggardly" nor "hornpipe" are words that * use terribly often, * have used both in the last year. * also have absolutely no compunction about referring to the tool that * use to weed the garden as a "hoe", despite the alternative use of that word popularized by rap culture.
LilBuddha seems to be among those claiming that * should consciously refrain from using the word "niggardly" in case people either mis-hear or mis-understand (presumably assuming "niggardly" to mean "like a nigger")
* disagree. There is a wider point, which is that one should endeavour to be understood by one's interlocutors, and so choose words that they are likely to understand (and so one should probably equally disfavour niggardly and parsimonious) but * can't agree with the narrow point that "niggardly" should be especially avoided because some people might think it sounds racist.
(* wonder, is "niggle" bad, too?)
* think this is true in general society, but it is especially true in schools and colleges, where part of the job of educators is to expose their pupils to new vocabulary.
So if anyone has read the Hell thread and has twitchy fingers, have at it here...
[ 20. September 2014, 10:38: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Conflating 'niggardly' with the N-word is indicative more of ignorance than anything else.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I once ran into criticism from a student (from my one-semester college teaching career) for using the word "Jew" to describe someone who self-identified as, well, a Jew.
Apparently the young man had only ever previously heard this word uttered as an insult (not my intent when I used it). He reported me to the department head, who is -- wait for it -- Jewish.
I think we may slowly be reaching a point where we'll be unable to hold converse with anyone except about the weather, and even then we'll have to pick our way cautiously across the minefields of terms like "hot", "frigid", "windy" and so on.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Conflating 'niggardly' with the N-word is indicative more of ignorance than anything else.
There's more than enough ignorance to go around, not to mention competing derivations.
Consider the name Nigel Mr. B****
There are also plenty of words with racial meanings where the racism has largely been forgotten such as the use of the word maroon as an insult on the assumption it's related to the Greek derived moron.
Consider also the N***** word. It may have originally had a neutral meaning and derivation but it became a racial insult. It may also be used as a non-racial slang word. Context trumps derivation. Words are repurposed all the time, e.g. dog-whistle.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
The writer Benjamin Zephaniah was on a Sunday talk show a little while ago, and was outraged when another guest called him 'sunshine' in the course of the debate. He was fuming that 'a white man' called him such a racist term. Now, I was quite startled by this, as I associated the word with Eric Morecambe, who often called people 'sunshine', and in fact by coincidence the word cropped up in quite a few TV programmes after that - I wouldn't have noticed it normally but Benjamin was such a dickhead about it that it stuck with me.
He went down in my estimation a fair bit after that.
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
Posts: 1731 | From: Isle of Albion | Registered: Feb 2006
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
I, too, have been roundly criticized for referring to a Jewish author (Karen Tulchinsky, who has done a great novel--The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky--on Toronto's Christie Pit riots of the 1930s) as, well, yes, a Jew. My interlocutor at this conference virtually spat with fury as she told me that I was quite wrong to do so, for Ms Tulchinsky was Jewish, not a Jew.
Retailing this to Ms Tulchinsky over glasses of chartreuse on ice (long story), she startled the waitress with her laughter and said that it was as well that I had not called her a Jewess.
Should I ever use niggardly in speech or in writing, I would make certain to mention that this had nothing to do with the n-word, for I could not assume that even educated listeners would know otherwise.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
My answer would be that I would no more think of the word "nigger" when using the word "niggardly" than I would think of the word "whore" when using the word "hornpipe",
Poor example, IMO.
First, I did not, state that any word be eliminated from usage. Just that the usage was odd.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Conflating 'niggardly' with the N-word is indicative more of ignorance than anything else.
Agreed. But I still posit that using niggardly without understanding that it might be misinterpreted is also ignorant. Especially from a person working in Washington D.C, the location of the man fired for its usage.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I don't understand the point if getting furious about it, but I have had a couple Jewish folk gently instruct me on the fraughtness of referring to someone as a "jew" . ( my takeaway was that it was kind of like referring to someone as " a white" or " a black" -- that sounds terse and disrespectful without the addition of the word " person, right? ) I strongly suspect it is "the goyim" trying to be extra cautious that make the biggest stink about offensiveness.
In any case, the shift is very easy to make, so I made it.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
My interlocutor at this conference virtually spat with fury as she told me that I was quite wrong to do so, for Ms Tulchinsky was Jewish, not a Jew.
Perhaps you could invite your interlocutor to join us here and explain how one goes about being Jewish without being a Jew. AFAIK, these terms (unlike "nigger" and "niggardly") do not have different derivations.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I don't understand the point if getting furious about it, but I have had a couple Jewish folk gently instruct me on the fraughtness of referring to someone as a "jew" . ( my takeaway was that it was kind of like referring to someone as " a white" or " a black" -- that sounds terse and disrespectful without the addition of the word " person, right? ) I strongly suspect it is "the goyim" trying to be extra cautious that make the biggest stink about offensiveness.
In any case, the shift is very easy to make, so I made it.
The point of her fury was to demonstrate the strength of her righteousness on behalf of others and, by comparison, my defects.
Insofar as Jew/Jewish is concerned, locally I wonder if there be an age-cohort distinction, where older people prefer Jewish. The only one of my friends whom I heard object to the term Jew explained to me afterward that her family was Sephardic, and they did not care to be lumped in with the other sort.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I've generally understood that using the adjectival form Jewish (or white, or black, or indeed gay) was more polite than the noun as the latter implies that the label you are using is the defining characteristic of the person. It's not always unacceptable, but it's kind of an edge case. It's more acceptable than "negro", but even that has some contexts in which it is still just about acceptable, albeit not many.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
The most recent discussion on this which came my way suggested that calling someone a Jew suggested that they were more active as such than someone who was Jewish, which referred to a situation where identity was more vestigial. In my former RL, when I worked with Jewish community groups, the terms were used interchangeably, varying with sentence structure or where writers would be specific about Jewish Canadians, but write of Jews globally.
Looking through yesterday's obituaries of the late Herb Gray, the Windsor Star writes: "Gray became the first Jew to serve in the federal cabinet," the CBC says "Canada's first Jewish federal cabinet minister," the Jerusalem Post "As a proud Jew and an equally proud Canadian," although Jewish predominates in the notices.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Higgs Bosun
Shipmate
# 16582
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Context trumps derivation. Words are repurposed all the time, e.g. dog-whistle.
Now, that has me intrigued. I cannot think of any meaning of 'dog-whistle' other that that of the description of a device for generating a high pitched sound, used to attract the attention of a canine animal.
Am I too old, or on the wrong side of the Pond?
Posts: 313 | From: Near the Tidal Thames | Registered: Aug 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
What about "nigga" as used by black kids?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
What about "nigga" as used by black kids?
What about it?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
My interlocutor at this conference virtually spat with fury as she told me that I was quite wrong to do so, for Ms Tulchinsky was Jewish, not a Jew.
Perhaps you could invite your interlocutor to join us here and explain how one goes about being Jewish without being a Jew. AFAIK, these terms (unlike "nigger" and "niggardly") do not have different derivations.
I find that the "best practice" is to just call people what they want to be called without asking for an explanation.
I have definitely heard the word "Jew" used as an insult (young men will sometimes tell their cautious friends to "quit being such a Jew"), so I get it.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
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Holy Smoke
Shipmate
# 14866
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
Insofar as Jew/Jewish is concerned, locally I wonder if there be an age-cohort distinction, where older people prefer Jewish. The only one of my friends whom I heard object to the term Jew explained to me afterward that her family was Sephardic, and they did not care to be lumped in with the other sort.
In my experience, in the UK at least, those Jews whose families immigrated into the UK pre-twentieth century are more likely to regard themselves as Britons who practice Judaism, rather than Jews who happen to live in Britain. OTOH, those who entered the UK during the twentieth century are more likely to have had family members actively involved in Zionism, or to have had relatives murdered during WWII, thus being more likely to be conscious of themselves as Jewish.
But I've never heard of any distinction between using 'Jew' and 'Jewish'; in any case, both were in regular use as casual insults when I was growing up, for anyone accused of meanness or miserliness.
The term of offence of preference for coloured folk, incidentally, was 'coon', rather than 'nigger' - the term seems to have fallen almost completely out of use these days, even in impolite society.
Posts: 335 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2009
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Especially from a person working in Washington D.C, the location of the man fired for its usage.
Is penny-pinching so foreign a concept in Washington DC that words for it are unknown ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
What about "nigga" as used by black kids?
What about it?
It's called reclaiming. The method is to adopt a term generally understood as an insult and use it in a benign, or even comradely way among your peers for the specific purpose of negating its impact when you encounter it in a malevolent way. This is where "snaps" or "doing the dozens" came from, as well.
Note I italicized the key components of the method.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
The point of her fury was to demonstrate the strength of her righteousness on behalf of others and, by comparison, my defects.
Insofar as Jew/Jewish is concerned, locally I wonder if there be an age-cohort distinction, where older people prefer Jewish. The only one of my friends whom I heard object to the term Jew explained to me afterward that her family was Sephardic, and they did not care to be lumped in with the other sort.
I've wondered the same. The scolds I got were from older folk. Perhaps residue from the times when the label "Jew" was used by "goyim" to practice exclusion and discrimination in the best of circumstances and to provide the sole justification for arrest in the worst.
Also, the "adjective form"thing mentioned above.
[ 25. April 2014, 00:19: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Um, yeah, I know that Kelly. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I was wondering where no prophet was going with the question.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Especially from a person working in Washington D.C, the location of the man fired for its usage.
Is penny-pinching so foreign a concept in Washington DC that words for it are unknown ?
Washington is full of politicians, I am quite sure they know how to pinch.
But Washington is also ~50% Black. So an assistant to the Mayor of that city should be very conscious of word misunderstandings.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I figured you knew that, i was chiming in to respond to NP.
Regarding the " niggardly" gaffe-- forgive me for being hugely cynical, but it has the feel to me of that famous" practicing homo sapiens" bit of election dirt from the 1800's . I find it hard to believe that the speaker didn't know that most of his listening audience hadn't used the word in a sentence, ever, and that he didn't have a sense of how it would land on people's ears.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Older people might be more sensitive to the word Jew from the older use as a verb; to jew someone was to negotiate aggressively.
I do remember a discussion with a Canadian friend about a code usage in a book called "Small Jews". A group of older Jews would refer to themselves as "Canadians" when speaking where they might be overheard by non-Jews. "We Canadians like Chinese food." My friend said he had heard the usage among some of his American Jewish friends and had protested to them, pointing out he was the only Canadian present.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Is it determined by context, a little? If I started a joke, "A Jew, a Christian, and Muslim walk into a Starbucks," aside from the fact that many jokes that start this way play on ugly stereotypes, is my use of the words problematic? I ask for information.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
It's called reclaiming.
Note also the reclaiming of the word "Queer" to add to the alphabet soup of not-exclusively-heterosexual people. But again, as an adjective. Calling someone queer is fine, if that is how they describe themselves, but "a queer" would be a no-no.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Yup. Another one I've gotten in trouble for, in an attempt to be right-on.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Is it determined by context, a little? If I started a joke, "A Jew, a Christian, and Muslim walk into a Starbucks," aside from the fact that many jokes that start this way play on ugly stereotypes, is my use of the words problematic? I ask for information.
(personal opinion) The nature if the joke itself would probably make the nomenclature a side issue. Meaning, if your audience us fine with those kinds of jokes, they probably won't care.
Therefore, Know Thine Audience.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
I don't see anything wrong with using the word niggardly in writing. But saying it out loud to a group of people is bound to turn heads and cause unnecessary awkwardness if not offense among people who do not hear the last syllable or the context. Lots of words contain the sounds of the racial/ethnic epithets "spic" and "chink" but the n-word causes such visceral pain and anger among anyone who hears even the sound of it embedded in another word that it's best avoided in puic speech.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
The "n-word" also is one that has a large number of variations that are phonetic approximations clearly meant to refer to the word;
e.g. the group N.W.A. or the term wigger .
While the guy who uttered the word Niggardly may not have meant to disparage, it could have been interpreted as yet another euphemism by approximation. Justifications of etymologic derivation are usually given short shift. Try explaining that the n-word is all right because it was originally simply a color designation before it became an insult.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Is it determined by context, a little? If I started a joke, "A Jew, a Christian, and Muslim walk into a Starbucks," aside from the fact that many jokes that start this way play on ugly stereotypes, is my use of the words problematic? I ask for information.
Depends on the joke, but you're treading on thin ice. That can make the joke, as the Robin Williams joke;
An Orthodox Jew in Hasidic garb with a large talking frog sitting on his hat walks into a bar. The bartender says "Where did you get him?"
The frog says "Williamsburg, they've got a million of them there."
The joke is in the unexpected reversal to avoid a stereotype joke.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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The5thMary
Shipmate
# 12953
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Posted
Just yesterday I was telling my wife that so-and-so was practically the linchpin of our housing cooperative and she looked around uneasily (we were outside, waiting for a bus) and told me not to use that word. "It sounds like you're saying LYNCH!". I really hate the fact that she is so scared of mere words. Okay, we both hate the 'N word' and will not use it and get rather riled up when we hear our friends say it. But worrying about 'linchpin'? My poor, dear wife is so nervous around Black folks...
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God gave me my face but She let me pick my nose.
Posts: 3451 | From: Tacoma, WA USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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The5thMary
Shipmate
# 12953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Yup. Another one I've gotten in trouble for, in an attempt to be right-on.
Well, I love you all the same, Kelly!
what gets me hot under the collar is when straight friends, thinking they're being clever and 'with it' call me a "lesbo". A former friend just thought this was hilarious and kept repeating it even when I told her I found it offensive. I'm not a violent person normally, but I so wanted to slap her grinning face.
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God gave me my face but She let me pick my nose.
Posts: 3451 | From: Tacoma, WA USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But Washington is also ~50% Black. So an assistant to the Mayor of that city should be very conscious of word misunderstandings.
Not anymore—and that's even more the issue. Race is an insanely tense issue here in Chocolate City, and dog whistles are blown every five minutes. While it's been over 40 years since the '68 race riots burned much of the heart of the city to the ground—areas that are just now recovering—tensions are still simmering just beneath the surface, especially in gentrifying areas.
It's hard to explain how the tensions are expressed without referring people to years of city council deliberations, Marion Barry statements about "dirty Asians" and "the Plan," Courtland Miloy columns about newcomers with their bike lanes, doggie parks, and cupcakeries taking priority over jobs for long-time residents, or people who look a whole lot like me talking about how the only reason anything gets done in this city is the new energy and ideas brought by the new residents who actually do something for a change, but the tensions didn't need much to be set off. DC politics are still loaded in racial terms, and the east/west split in city politics is still discussed as a white/black one, inaccurate as that (increasingly) is.
Also, David Howard was rehired by then-mayor Anthony WIlliams, after the chairman of the NAACP said that the DC government should be given dictionaries.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
No wonder so many supposedly liberal white Americans seem to hate Nigerians. The very name of their nation disturbs their hard-learned word-avoidance strategies. And, unlike "niggardly" it really is the same word as "nigger".
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
No wonder so many supposedly liberal white Americans seem to hate Nigerians. The very name of their nation disturbs their hard-learned word-avoidance strategies. And, unlike "niggardly" it really is the same word as "nigger".
I had no idea that was a trend. Where did you hear that?
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
A decade or so ago in the UK, following a newspaper campaign (the defunct "News of the World") in favour of public outing of paedophiles, a paediatrician arrived home to find the word "PAEDO" spray-painted in large letters on her front door.
The story got overblown. Considered reflection is that the isolated incident, which caused the victim to move home, was an illustration of ignorance by a small group of teenagers. There was no doubt who was being ignorant in this case, and it was not the paediatrician for "daring" to join a profession whose very title laid her wide open to this sort of victimisation. That would be a clear misapplication of blame. There has been no serious move to re-title the profession to avoid similar confusion in the future.
Why cannot the misconstruing of "niggardly" as a racist epithet be similarly called out as an example of word-ignorance?
Is this the back-story?
If it is, then this comment seems to fit the bill very well.
quote:
NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, who in criticizing Williams last week said that people should not have to "censor" their language to meet other "people's lack of understanding," praised Howard's reinstatement.
"I'm happy to learn that this episode has come to some happy conclusion and that the citizens and the government of the District of Columbia can get back to talking about real issues," he said.
.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Discussions like this always remind me of Shakespeare's cunt jokes, e.g. 'Did you think I meant country matters?', Hamlet to Ophelia, where most modern actors pause after 'count', so everyone can have a snigger.
Lots of others I think, most beautiful is 'I shall live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in your eyes', (Much Ado), ('die' = orgasm).
I can't believe people worry about 'niggardly'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Conflating 'niggardly' with the N-word is indicative more of ignorance than anything else.
Agreed. But I still posit that using niggardly without understanding that it might be misinterpreted is also ignorant. Especially from a person working in Washington D.C, the location of the man fired for its usage.
Wait! What? Someone was fired for saying it? ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
Surely the employer would have better-spent the money to be incurred from the almost-inevitable employment law suit resulting from this on purchasing dictionaries for those supposedly taking offence?
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
I've never heard the term niggardly used in the past 20 years except as provocation or trolling. I've seen it in older books. And niggardly has strong synonyms so unlike e.g. the distinct meaning of disinterested* it's not a word I consider worth fighting for.
* Disinterested is often used as a synonym for uninterested. The difference is that judges and scientists should be disinterested but not uninterested.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
I have. Miserly is always a critical concept and to describe a person or a programme as miserly is always likely to provoke. Miserly and niggardly are synonymous. The concept of meanness is colour blind.
How about the word niggle? That's a critical word as well. Is it to be avoided because it sounds a bit like another particularly offensive word, with which it has zero semantic connection? If a Chairman of the NAACP could see the absurdity, speak against the need for such kinds of voluntary censorship, just because words sound a certain way, where is the problem?
[ 25. April 2014, 11:58: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
The article linked to in this post by Barnabas has the following paragraph. quote:
NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, who in criticizing Williams last week said that people should not have to "censor" their language to meet other "people's lack of understanding," praised Howard's reinstatement.
If someone uses a word which another person misinterprets as an insult, he should not be treated as if he had deliberately spoken an insult. The person who feels insulted should explain what the word means to him; then the person who spoke the word should explain what it means to him. The person who feels insulted should accept the other's explanation in good faith; the one who spoke the offending word should be very careful how he uses it in future.
I once had a trivial misunderstanding of this type. I playfully called someone a 'dastard'; he was not familiar with the word, and thought I was calling him a bastard; he was offended.
I explained the word and he accepted my explanation. I am not sure I have ever used the word since.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
I've never heard the term niggardly used in the past 20 years except as provocation or trolling. I've seen it in older books. And niggardly has strong synonyms so unlike e.g. the distinct meaning of disinterested* it's not a word I consider worth fighting for.
*snip*
Generally, I would agree with Justinian's account of current usage but I would note that I have heard it used by Irish and older English speakers of English in what I judge to be an entirely innocent manner. I think that it is not unreasonable to move it into vocabulary limbo, resurrecting only to illustrate a certain aspect of language change.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
Bu there's no language change there. Some people misunderstand it, that's all. They're wrong, not the people who use the word.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
The article linked to in this post by Barnabas has the following paragraph. quote:
NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, who in criticizing Williams last week said that people should not have to "censor" their language to meet other "people's lack of understanding," praised Howard's reinstatement.
If someone uses a word which another person misinterprets as an insult, he should not be treated as if he had deliberately spoken an insult.
On the other hand if someone deliberately uses language they know is liable to cause insult and misunderstandings then they are responsible for the fall out. If there is no positive reason to use such a word (e.g. with miserly substituting for niggardly) then it needs to be questioned why they would do so.
quote:
I explained the word and he accepted my explanation. I am not sure I have ever used the word since.
And this is handling the whole thing perfectly.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
I think Stonespring's comment (use the word in writing but expect a reaction if it is used aloud) is a reasonable evaluation. I suspect we could come up with more words other than "niggardly" that would be better used in print than aloud.
I remember that when I was in high school, there was a student named "Fuchs". He was teased about this now and then.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Um, yeah, I know that Kelly.
I was wondering where no prophet was going with the question.
I was asking because I didn't know. Kelly's clarification, and subsequent discussion about re-claiming is very helpful.
The 2 examples make me wonder if reclaiming is a more general practice. I think it's great.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Is it determined by context, a little? If I started a joke, "A Jew, a Christian, and Muslim walk into a Starbucks," aside from the fact that many jokes that start this way play on ugly stereotypes, is my use of the words problematic? I ask for information.
Per my policy that you call people what they want to be called, I would say that if you want to know what you can and cannot call non-white or non-Christian people, you might find a better focus group than a predominately white, predominately Christian discussion group.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Stercus Tauri
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# 16668
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Posted
I must have led a very sheltered existence. Until I read this conversation it had never occurred to me that there might have been any connection between the familiar 'niggardly' and the other word. But my Dear (American) Wife sighs and gives me a pitying look when I tell her this.
Now, 'Jew' is an interesting word. A young friend converted a few years ago. How should she be characterised? I think of her as a Jew instead of the Christian that she used to be. I would never say that she is Jewish, as talking about the Jewish people seems (to me) to imply ethnicity.
Life has changed since the early 70s when my boss in Edinburgh could say he had a liberal recruiting policy; just no women or w*gs in his department. And there were different pay scales for men and women - never any secret about that. We have to be so much more creative when we want to conceal prejudice now, and Heaven help those of us who are merely ignorant.
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Thay haif said. Quhat say thay, Lat thame say (George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal)
Posts: 905 | From: On the traditional lands of the Six Nations. | Registered: Sep 2011
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