Niggardly
Encyclopedia
In the United States
, there have been several controversies concerning the word "niggardly," an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly," due to its phonetic
similarity to the racial slur "nigger
." The two words are etymologically unrelated.
verb nigla = "to fuss about small matters". It is cognate with "niggling", meaning "petty" or "unimportant", as in "the niggling details".
"Nigger" derives from the Spanish
/Portuguese
word negro, meaning "black", and the French
nègre, which has become a racist insult in American culture. Both negro and noir (and therefore also nègre and nigger) ultimately come from nigrum, the accusative
case of the Latin
adjective niger, meaning "black" or "dark."
, the black mayor of Washington, D.C.
, used "niggardly" in reference to a budget. This apparently upset one of his black colleagues (identified by Howard as Marshall Brown), who interpreted it as a racial slur and lodged a complaint. As a result, on January 25 Howard tendered his resignation, and Williams accepted it.
However, after pressure from the gay community
(of which Howard was a member) an internal review into the matter was brought about, and the mayor offered Howard the chance to return to his position as Office of the Public Advocate on February 4. Howard refused but accepted another position with the mayor instead, insisting that he did not feel victimized by the incident. On the contrary, Howard felt that he had learned from the situation. "I used to think it would be great if we could all be colorblind. That's naïve, especially for a white person, because a white person can't afford to be colorblind. They don't have to think about race every day. An African American does."
It has been speculated that this incident inspired Philip Roth
's novel The Human Stain
.
, on whether use of niggardly should be avoided. Some observers noted however that the "national debate" was made up almost entirely of commentators defending use of the word. As James Poniewozik
wrote in Salon
, the controversy was "an issue that opinion-makers right, left and center could universally agree on." He wrote that "the defenders of the dictionary" were "legion, and still queued up six abreast." Julian Bond
, then chairman of the NAACP, deplored the offense that had been taken at Howard's use of the word. "You hate to think you have to censor your language to meet other people's lack of understanding", he said. "David Howard should not have quit. Mayor Williams should bring him back — and order dictionaries issued to all staff who need them."
Bond also said, "Seems to me the mayor has been niggardly in his judgment on the issue" and as a nation we have a "hair-trigger sensibility" on race that can be tripped by both real and false grievances.
. At a February meeting of the Faculty Senate, a junior English major and vice chairwoman of the Black Student Union told the group how a professor teaching Chaucer had used the word niggardly. She later said she was unaware of the related Washington, D.C. controversy that came to light just the week before. She said the professor continued to use the word even after she told him that she was offended. "I was in tears, shaking," she told the faculty. "It's not up to the rest of the class to decide whether my feelings are valid."
The student's plea, offered as evidence in support of the school's speech code
, instead struck an unintended chord helping to destroy it. "Many 'abolitionists', as they now were called, believe that [the student's] speech, widely reported, was the turning point," according to an article in Reason
magazine. An editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal
addressed the student who complained, saying: "Thank you [...] for clarifying precisely why the UW–Madison does not need an academic speech code. [...] Speech codes have a chilling effect on academic freedom
and they reinforce defensiveness among students who ought to be more open to learning."
was formally reprimanded for teaching the word and told to attend sensitivity training.
The teacher, Stephanie Bell, said she used "niggardly" during a discussion about literary characters. Parent Akwana Walker, who is black, protested the use of the word, saying it offended her because it sounds similar to a racial slur.
Bell's union, the North Carolina Association of Educators, told her not to speak about the situation, so her son, Tarl Bell, spoke to the newspaper. Tarl Bell said his mother received a letter from the school principal stating that the teacher used poor judgment and instructing her to send an apology to the parents of her students, which was done. The principal's letter also criticized the teacher for lacking sensitivity. The daughter of the complaining parent was moved to another classroom.
Norm Shearin, the deputy superintendent of schools for the district, said the teacher made a bad decision by teaching the word because it was inappropriate for that grade level.
magazine used the word "niggardly" in an article about the impact of computers and productivity: "During the 1980s, when service industries consumed about 85% of the $1 trillion invested in I.T. in the United States, productivity growth averaged a niggardly 0.8% a year." The Economist later pointed out with amusement that it received a letter from a reader in Boston who thought the word "niggardly" was inappropriate. "Why do we get such letters only from America?" the British magazine commented.
had banned the use of the word after its use in a restaurant review had raised complaints.
magazine in March 1924 prints this exchange (although it may have been from a short story, making it a fictional complaint and an observation by the author of the potential for confusion):
that referred to President Obama, the first black US President, as "niggardly". A smaller sign that read "Buck Ofama" (a spoonerism
of "Fuck Obama") appeared under it. The sign was placed among several billboards advertising a local coffee shop that was going out of business that week. The restaurant's owner stated that they were unaware of the Obama signs until contacted by a local news station. The sign was removed shortly after news reports about it appeared on local television stations.
"The word's new lease of life is probably among manufacturers and retailers of sophomoric humor", wrote John Derbyshire
, a conservative commentator, in 2002. "I bet that even as I write, some adolescent boys, in the stairwell of some high school somewhere in America, are accusing each other of being niggardly, and sniggering at their own outrageous wit. I bet ... Wait a minute. 'Sniggering'? Oh, my God...."
Derbyshire wrote that although he loved to use words that are sometimes considered obscure, he would not use the word in mixed company, especially among less-educated black people, out of politeness and to avoid causing someone to feel uncomfortable, regardless of any non-racial meanings he would intend.
Shortly after the Washington, D.C., incident, James Poniewozik wrote in his column at Slate
online magazine that some were already using "niggardly" in a way that made their motives ambiguous. He quoted a posting by "chill10d" at a reader forum at the New York Times Web site "who just happened to use 'niggardly' — linguistically correctly" in commenting on two witnesses to a Congressional investigation:
"You can't say child—white, black or Klingon for all I know—had racist motives. And you can't exactly not say it", Poniewozik wrote. He expected a number of "pinheads" to be asking "black waitresses not to be 'niggardly' with the coffee."
But there would be a different reaction in polite company, especially in racially mixed company, so the word would probably be thought of only when people think of racial epithets. "In theory, you, I and the columnist next door will defend to the death our right to say 'niggardly'. But in practice, will we use it?"
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, there have been several controversies concerning the word "niggardly," an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly," due to its phonetic
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...
similarity to the racial slur "nigger
Nigger
Nigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people , and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur...
." The two words are etymologically unrelated.
Word origins
"Niggardly" (noun: "niggard") is an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly", perhaps related to the Old NorseOld Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
verb nigla = "to fuss about small matters". It is cognate with "niggling", meaning "petty" or "unimportant", as in "the niggling details".
"Nigger" derives from the Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
/Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
word negro, meaning "black", and the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
nègre, which has become a racist insult in American culture. Both negro and noir (and therefore also nègre and nigger) ultimately come from nigrum, the accusative
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
case of the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
adjective niger, meaning "black" or "dark."
David Howard incident
On January 15, 1999, David Howard, a white aide to Anthony A. WilliamsAnthony A. Williams
Anthony Allen "Tony" Williams is an American politician who served as the fifth mayor of the District of Columbia for two terms, from 1999 to 2007. He had previously served as chief financial officer for the District, managing to balance the budget and achieve a surplus within two years of...
, the black mayor of Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, used "niggardly" in reference to a budget. This apparently upset one of his black colleagues (identified by Howard as Marshall Brown), who interpreted it as a racial slur and lodged a complaint. As a result, on January 25 Howard tendered his resignation, and Williams accepted it.
However, after pressure from the gay community
Gay community
The gay community, or LGBT community, is a loosely defined grouping of LGBT and LGBT-supportive people, organizations and subcultures, united by a common culture and civil rights movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality...
(of which Howard was a member) an internal review into the matter was brought about, and the mayor offered Howard the chance to return to his position as Office of the Public Advocate on February 4. Howard refused but accepted another position with the mayor instead, insisting that he did not feel victimized by the incident. On the contrary, Howard felt that he had learned from the situation. "I used to think it would be great if we could all be colorblind. That's naïve, especially for a white person, because a white person can't afford to be colorblind. They don't have to think about race every day. An African American does."
It has been speculated that this incident inspired Philip Roth
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...
's novel The Human Stain
The Human Stain
The Human Stain is a novel by Philip Roth. It is set in late 1990s rural New England. Its first person narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, a character in previous Roth novels, including American Pastoral and I Married a Communist ; these two books form a loose trilogy with The Human...
.
Public response
The Howard incident led to a national debate in the U.S., in the context of racial sensitivity and political correctnessPolitical correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
, on whether use of niggardly should be avoided. Some observers noted however that the "national debate" was made up almost entirely of commentators defending use of the word. As James Poniewozik
James Poniewozik
James Poniewozik is an American journalist and television critic. He writes Times Tuned In column and has a blog with the same name.Originally from Monroe, MI, Poniewozik attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, graduating with a BA in English. He subsequently attended the graduate program...
wrote in Salon
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, the controversy was "an issue that opinion-makers right, left and center could universally agree on." He wrote that "the defenders of the dictionary" were "legion, and still queued up six abreast." Julian Bond
Julian Bond
Horace Julian Bond , known as Julian Bond, is an American social activist and leader in the American civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the early 1960s, he helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating...
, then chairman of the NAACP, deplored the offense that had been taken at Howard's use of the word. "You hate to think you have to censor your language to meet other people's lack of understanding", he said. "David Howard should not have quit. Mayor Williams should bring him back — and order dictionaries issued to all staff who need them."
Bond also said, "Seems to me the mayor has been niggardly in his judgment on the issue" and as a nation we have a "hair-trigger sensibility" on race that can be tripped by both real and false grievances.
University of Wisconsin incident
Shortly after the Washington incident, another controversy erupted over the use of the word at the University of Wisconsin–MadisonUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
. At a February meeting of the Faculty Senate, a junior English major and vice chairwoman of the Black Student Union told the group how a professor teaching Chaucer had used the word niggardly. She later said she was unaware of the related Washington, D.C. controversy that came to light just the week before. She said the professor continued to use the word even after she told him that she was offended. "I was in tears, shaking," she told the faculty. "It's not up to the rest of the class to decide whether my feelings are valid."
The student's plea, offered as evidence in support of the school's speech code
Speech code
A speech code is any rule or regulation that limits, restricts, or bans speech beyond the strict legal limitations upon freedom of speech or press found in the legal definitions of harassment, slander, libel, and fighting words. Such codes are common in the workplace, in universities, and in...
, instead struck an unintended chord helping to destroy it. "Many 'abolitionists', as they now were called, believe that [the student's] speech, widely reported, was the turning point," according to an article in Reason
Reason (magazine)
Reason is a libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...
magazine. An editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal
Wisconsin State Journal
The Wisconsin State Journal is a daily newspaper published in Madison, Wisconsin by Lee Enterprises. The newspaper, the second largest in Wisconsin, is primarily distributed in a 19 county region in south-central Wisconsin...
addressed the student who complained, saying: "Thank you [...] for clarifying precisely why the UW–Madison does not need an academic speech code. [...] Speech codes have a chilling effect on academic freedom
Academic freedom
Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.Academic freedom is a...
and they reinforce defensiveness among students who ought to be more open to learning."
Wilmington, North Carolina incident
In late January or early February 2002, a white fourth-grade teacher in Wilmington, North CarolinaWilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and is the county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States. The population is 106,476 according to the 2010 Census, making it the eighth most populous city in the state of North Carolina...
was formally reprimanded for teaching the word and told to attend sensitivity training.
The teacher, Stephanie Bell, said she used "niggardly" during a discussion about literary characters. Parent Akwana Walker, who is black, protested the use of the word, saying it offended her because it sounds similar to a racial slur.
Bell's union, the North Carolina Association of Educators, told her not to speak about the situation, so her son, Tarl Bell, spoke to the newspaper. Tarl Bell said his mother received a letter from the school principal stating that the teacher used poor judgment and instructing her to send an apology to the parents of her students, which was done. The principal's letter also criticized the teacher for lacking sensitivity. The daughter of the complaining parent was moved to another classroom.
Norm Shearin, the deputy superintendent of schools for the district, said the teacher made a bad decision by teaching the word because it was inappropriate for that grade level.
Mendocino County, CA incident
Dennis Boaz, a history teacher, sued the administrators of the Mendocino County Office of Education for defamation. Mr. Boaz, who was bargaining for Ukiah schoolteachers, wrote a letter saying that the "tenor of the negotiation tactics of the district office has become increasingly negative and niggardly." The response was a memo from one defendant of the lawsuit that implied that Boaz was racist, and a letter cosigned by the other defendant and nine other individuals in the Mendocino County school system stating that Boaz's comments were "racially charged and show a complete lack of respect and integrity toward Dr. Nash, Ukiah Unified District Superintendent," who is black.Economist magazine, 1995
In 1995, years before the incidents in Washington, Wilmington and Madison, The EconomistThe Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
magazine used the word "niggardly" in an article about the impact of computers and productivity: "During the 1980s, when service industries consumed about 85% of the $1 trillion invested in I.T. in the United States, productivity growth averaged a niggardly 0.8% a year." The Economist later pointed out with amusement that it received a letter from a reader in Boston who thought the word "niggardly" was inappropriate. "Why do we get such letters only from America?" the British magazine commented.
Dallas Morning News
At some point before the Washington, D.C., incident (of early 1999), The Dallas Morning NewsThe Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News is the major daily newspaper serving the Dallas, Texas area, with a circulation of 264,459 subscribers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in September 2010...
had banned the use of the word after its use in a restaurant review had raised complaints.
Old complaint
An article in McClure'sMcClure's
McClure's or McClure's Magazine was an American illustrated monthly periodical popular at the turn of the 20th century. The magazine is credited with creating muckraking journalism. Ida Tarbell's series in 1902 exposing the monopoly abuses of John D...
magazine in March 1924 prints this exchange (although it may have been from a short story, making it a fictional complaint and an observation by the author of the potential for confusion):
Acampo, California
On March 31, 2010, a billboard appeared along the frontage of the Hwy 99 freeway in Acampo, CAAcampo, California
Acampo is a small census-designated place just outside of Stockton in San Joaquin County, California, United States. It is the childhood home of Kamal Givens and his brother Ahmad, of the reality television show Real Chance of Love. In the 1870s, Acampo was named as a Southern Pacific Railroad...
that referred to President Obama, the first black US President, as "niggardly". A smaller sign that read "Buck Ofama" (a spoonerism
Spoonerism
A spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched . It is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner , Warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this tendency...
of "Fuck Obama") appeared under it. The sign was placed among several billboards advertising a local coffee shop that was going out of business that week. The restaurant's owner stated that they were unaware of the Obama signs until contacted by a local news station. The sign was removed shortly after news reports about it appeared on local television stations.
Broward County, Florida
One Broward County drug counselor has been fired and another suspended for an incident in which the word "niggardly" was used. A substance-abuse client filed a complaint saying a counselor called him "niggardly dumb" in a June meeting with two workers at a county rehab center. In an investigative report, the county's professional standards office found the workers, who are both white, engaged in "unprofessional, unethical and discriminatory" behavior.Publicity and racial use
The public controversies caused some commentators to speculate that "niggardly" would be used more often, both in its correct sense and as fodder for humor, as a racist code word or both."The word's new lease of life is probably among manufacturers and retailers of sophomoric humor", wrote John Derbyshire
John Derbyshire
John Derbyshire is a British-American writer. His columns in National Review and cover a broad range of political-cultural topics, including immigration, China, history, mathematics, and race. Derbyshire's 1996 novel, Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream, was a New York Times "Notable Book of the...
, a conservative commentator, in 2002. "I bet that even as I write, some adolescent boys, in the stairwell of some high school somewhere in America, are accusing each other of being niggardly, and sniggering at their own outrageous wit. I bet ... Wait a minute. 'Sniggering'? Oh, my God...."
Derbyshire wrote that although he loved to use words that are sometimes considered obscure, he would not use the word in mixed company, especially among less-educated black people, out of politeness and to avoid causing someone to feel uncomfortable, regardless of any non-racial meanings he would intend.
Shortly after the Washington, D.C., incident, James Poniewozik wrote in his column at Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
online magazine that some were already using "niggardly" in a way that made their motives ambiguous. He quoted a posting by "chill10d" at a reader forum at the New York Times Web site "who just happened to use 'niggardly' — linguistically correctly" in commenting on two witnesses to a Congressional investigation:
- B. CurryBetty CurrieBetty Currie is the former personal secretary for Bill Clinton...
[sic] got a pc pass because her testimony like that of all Clintonistas was niggardly with the truth. It is predictable that V. Jordan will have his opportunity to be equally niggardly in this regard. Witnesses? A woman (child), a negro, and a jew — very pc indeed!
"You can't say child—white, black or Klingon for all I know—had racist motives. And you can't exactly not say it", Poniewozik wrote. He expected a number of "pinheads" to be asking "black waitresses not to be 'niggardly' with the coffee."
But there would be a different reaction in polite company, especially in racially mixed company, so the word would probably be thought of only when people think of racial epithets. "In theory, you, I and the columnist next door will defend to the death our right to say 'niggardly'. But in practice, will we use it?"
See also
- Tar baby, a term that has similarly been construed as racist
- Water buffalo incidentWater buffalo incidentThe water buffalo incident was a controversy at the University of Pennsylvania in 1993, in which student Eden Jacobowitz was charged with violating the university's racial harassment policy.-History:...
, a similar controversy involving remarks perceived as racist