Racist expressions ?
June 28, 2005
As I was researching the origin of the word picnic (I was wondering whether it came from French pique-nique or the other way around), I came across a document claiming that it came from an Oklahoma custom of having a meal outside on Friday evenings followed by the lynching of a Black man. Picnic was thus meant to be short for pick a nigger. However, this is wrong; picnic indeed comes from pique-nique (piquer = pick, nique = thing of little importance).
This reminded me of the expression to call a spade a spade: some people think that originally, the spade represented a Black man, but as I explained in the comments, I found out that it is completely false.
There is yet another expression which is wrongly believed to be of racist origin: nitty-gritty, which is meant to refer to what was left in the slave ships once the living slaves had disembarked. However, it is highly unlikely that this is its origin, as the term first appeared in 1956, according to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (from World Wide Words).
Another example of how language can be wrongly considered racist: a Washington staff member had to resign after using the word niggardly during a staff meeting (read the Washington Post article).
So my question is, why all these myths about fairly innocuous expressions and words? When it comes to niggardly, I can see why the confusion, but when it comes to the expressions mentioned above, why on earth would anyone make up origins which, strangely, all spring from the days where slavery and racism were part of the ordinary?
Posted by céline, in Idioms, on June 28, 2005Good lord! I'm usually not on board with those who moan about the supposed ill effects of 'political correctness' but the 'niggardly' story, if accurately reported, is horrifying.
Posted by Jean on June 28, 2005 2:46 PMI happened on what appears to be a new crop of these the other day. According to a second- or third-hand story reported at http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=3561 there's a training agency telling Welsh civil servants (and presumably anyone else who will listen) not to use the words 'manila' ("a bangle used to buy slaves"), 'bulldozer' ("a man employed to beat slaves"), 'nit-picking' ("the examination of slaves' hair for lice") or 'poll tax' ("the US system which prevented blacks from voting"). Also discouraged are 'brainstorm' (which could be insulting to epileptics), 'Dutch courage' (which could be insulting to the Dutch) and 'maverick' (which could be insulting to cultures which venerate cows).
These proscriptions seem so silly, in so many different ways, that I don't want to say any more about them in case I go on for another hour! All I'll say for now is no, I don't know why people are thinking about slavery so much at the moment.
We live in times of X-Treme Political Correctness, and anyone who can come up with a new reason for people to be offended will get sweet, sweet attention (and perhaps an Oprah appearance).
That said, I think the fuss about "niggardly" is overblown. Yes, when I first heard about it I thought it was ridiculous, but then I'm overeducated and know both the word and its etymology. I can completely understand why people unfamiliar with either would find it disturbing; furthermore, since the whole flap arose certain people (of the lighter-toned persuasion) have made it a point to use the word just because African-Americans find it offensive (and because they can get away with it by smugly pointing at a dictionary), which is far worse than any ill-founded offense the word may cause.
Posted by language hat on June 30, 2005 6:11 PMLanguagehat, yes, if what you say about deliberate use of niggardly is true that's very unpleasant. Sigh! there will always be new ways of being offensive. That's why in general I think it IS important to relentlessly combat racist or otherwise offensive language, even at the risk of sometimes being tedious, over-the-top or even plain unjust.
Posted by Jean on July 5, 2005 12:10 PMPrevious: June 24, 2005
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