Well, you see, Cain should have gone all out to do what every white racist does when confronted with the obvious: bend over backward to explain how it isn’t “really” racist!

Good to see that even Uncle Ruckus gets it right once and a while.

I love the justifications for why a name like “Niggerhead” isn’t racist. “Um, it refers to a black iron post for mooring ships!” Fine. It’s a racist term for a black iron post for mooring ships. Or is that too advanced a concept?

So a group of hateful bigots turned against one of their own for not conforming?  Wow, I’m shocked.

I’ve said since the beginning that most of the Republican candidates don’t stand a chance in that party.  I’m surprised that T-Paw dropped out of the race because I thought he would win by default, so I guess that leaves us with Rick Perry.  He’s the only one who’s not black, female, Mormon, Catholic, or Ron Paul.

I’m actually amazed that Cain even stated the obvious that the name is racist, since he has been clinging pretty tightly to his Honorary White status.  I think we’ll see more things like this with the other GOP candidates as we get closer to the primaries (which are just a few months away, holy crap!)  Either their minority status will be emphasized on purpose, or they’ll be baited into making remarks like this that would seem reasonable and obvious to a liberal but will kill any chances with the GOP base.

Conservatives really cannot be the arbiters of what is and is not racist because their worldview is essentially selfish and self-serving, and all rules are bent to that one purpose at that one moment, rendering objectivity meaningless. I literally had someone try to argue that the phrase “N—-er in the woodpile” (which I guess means something) was not racist because I pointed out the word “niggardly” is Scandinavian in origin and does not have any etymology with the N-word.  And he wasn’t arguing that by my logic, anything that has the N-word sound in it isn’t racist, he just really wanted to use that term without having someone call him racist, even though he very clearly was.

So, we can now called anything with a circular aperture in it an “asshole” and all will be fine. That’s not offensive, right?

catfood at 3, of course the idea of a racist term for a black iron post foor mooring ships is too advanced a concept for the people defending the racist name of Perry’s ranch.

@ Mighty Ponygirl @5 - the way I’ve seen the phrase “(Ethnic group) in the woodpile” used is to suggest that a person has just a bit of that ethnic group in their ancestry, even though they may not look it.  Is that how the racist in question was trying to use it?

Nope!

So, we can now called anything with a circular aperture in it an “asshole” and all will be fine. That’s not offensive, right?
Comment #6: carswell on 10/03 at 01:00 PM

You know those little reinforcements you use to shore up the perforations on heavily-used sheets of paper in a ring binder?  At a previous job we called them “plastic assholes.”

I literally had someone try to argue that the phrase “N—-er in the woodpile” (which I guess means something) was not racist because I pointed out the word “niggardly” is Scandinavian in origin and does not have any etymology with the N-word.  And he wasn’t arguing that by my logic, anything that has the N-word sound in it isn’t racist, he just really wanted to use that term without having someone call him racist, even though he very clearly was.
Comment #5: Mighty Ponygirl on 10/03 at 12:49 PM

He’s wrong about the woodpile thing, my dad used to use it with full racist intent as Seraph described.

The people who use “niggardly” in order to get a rise out of Black people while pretending innocence are playing a fucked up game of “technically I’m not wrong” aka “asshole lawyer.”  You see this all the time in kids:

Adult:  “Don’t hit Cindy.”
Child:  “OK”
Cindy:  “WAAAAH!”
Adult:  “I said not to hit Cindy!”
Child:  “You said I shouldn’t hit Cindy and I didn’t hit Cindy!  I pinched her that’s NOT HITTING!”
Adult:  (sigh) “Don’t HURT Cindy in any way.”
Child:  “OK”

5 mins pass

Cindy:  “WAAAH!”
Adult:  “I said not to hurt Cindy!”
Child:  “I didn’t hurt her.”
Adult:  “Why is she crying?”
Cindy:  “SCARED ME!”
Adult:  “Don’t SCARE Cindy either!”
Child:  “OK”

5 mins pass

Cindy:  “WAAAH!”
Adult:  “I said not to scare Cindy!”
Child:  “I didn’t scare her.”
Adult:  “Why is she crying?”
Child:  “I dunno, I was just tickling her a little…”
Cindy:  (can’t breathe she’s been tickled so hard)
Adult:  “Don’t TICKLE Cindy either!”
Child:  “OK”

Ad infinitum et nauseam.

As always, the victim of racism isn’t the minority racial group, it’s the white guy who’s being accused of racism. White guys are supposed to get the benefit of the doubt, Cain! How could you forget?

So, we can now called anything with a circular aperture in it an “asshole” and all will be fine.

Works for me.

Okay, I’m too lazy to look it up/have it be in my search history. What does “N—- in the woodpile” mean?

I do tend to steer clear of the word “niggardly” simply because I don’t like that particular sound to pass my lips, even if I know it’s not really related to the N-word, but I’m also not going to be offended if someone uses it to mean exactly what it is supposed to mean and isn’t doing asshole lawyer shit with it.

Felagund, the way this guy described it, it basically meant “a hidden problem in the plan.” So I don’t really see how that can be spun as not incredibly, mind-bogglingly racist.

You knew it was only a matter of time.  Folks who have frothing at the mouth because there is a person of color in the White House for three years were never really going to get behind a black candidate, not matter how much of a batshit crazy teabagger he is.  Cain, for his part, fumbled this by mistakenly thinking it was a stick he could beat his primary rival for the teabagger vote with.

Thank you, Mighty P. Still doesn’t make any sense and can’t possibly be anything other than an excuse to be a horrible racist.

Ah, I see - all those things which were hard and black (and waiting to be pounded) were nicknamed niggerheads, and the house was named after *them* rather than anything racist.

Well, that certainly makes sense.  And since the process of driving a hard bargain was nicknamed “jewing someone down”, I’m sure no-one will mind if I refer to a salesperson as “the jewer”, since it comes from that rather than anything actually, you know, racist.  Really. it’s a compliment.

ARE THESE MORONS FUCKING INSANE OR WHAT?

After Cain went all in on the “brainwashed” comment, which is the endorsement of naked racism against blacks at its finest, I really don’t get this.  Cain’s “brainwashed” shtick is at least as racist as “Niggerhead.”  Did he suddenly look in the mirror and realize for the first time that he’s black?  Is he really just too stupid to realize that calling the heavy majority of black people “brainwashed” is a phenomenally and openly racist thing to do, regardless of the shade of his skin? 

felagund, like I said initially, there is no objective, logical discourse when the person with a completely selfish and self-serving worldview. The same word or phrase can simultaneously be completely harmless and horribly racist depending on who the object of the word is and who was using it.

Did Cain take a look at the Tea bugger ‘protest’ posters of BHO’s face imposed on witch doctor and think - “These people will vote for me. I KNOW they will!”

I heard a lot of noise made initially by pollsters about how TB motivations weren’t racist - but I think it’s only because racists have learned to always tell pollsters and survey takers they are not racist.

The same way FOX can call Michelle Obama “Barack’s Baby Mama” -  hohoho! Look how ‘with it’ FOX news is, gang!

I get it, because negroes don’t every get married…except BHO and Michelle. FOX - definitely NOT racist - just like the Teabuggers.

Are there really actual grown-ups who use “niggardly” in normal conversation?  That reminds me of when I was 10 and learned that Miss Suzie song where it sounds like I’m swearing but if a teacher called me on it I had plausible deniability, or when I went through that phase of using “dam” as often as I could fit it into a conversation because it sounds like “damn” except I could get away with it.  I don’t even know what “niggardly” means, and I know the definitions of tons and tons of obscure words.  Anyone who looks up the definition of that word just so they can use it in public and then pretend they’re innocent is basically a real-life troll with the mental maturity of a 10 year-old.

bananacat, I knew the definition, it’s used pretty frequently in classic literature. It has the same etymology of the word “niggling” as in “dinner was ready except for a few niggling little details.” I don’t know that I’ve really seen it used much this day and age, but I wouldn’t immediately declare that anyone who used it is just looking for an excuse to use the N-word.

I’ll ditto Mighty Ponygirl - I’ve never heard it used outside of the context of historical literature, but I don’t think it’s particularly obscure.  Realistically, “Nigger” is so charged I don’t think you can use “Niggardly” without the context demanding it and not offend people (well, depending on the company, maybe not offend ... but it’s not likely to be seen as innocuous, one way or the other.)

This was a big thing in 99: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/williams/williams020499.htm

The general attitude at the time was that he was horribly wronged but I tend to think, as you guys suggest, he was probably being an asshole.

The expression dates from 160 or more years ago, not surprising that the racists take it to heart as a ‘legitimate’ figure of speech:

Both the ‘fence’ and ‘woodpile’ variants developed about the same time in the period of 1840–50 when the Underground Railroad was flourishing. The evidence is slight, but it is presumed that they were derived from actual instances of the concealment of fugitive slaves in their flight north under piles of firewood or within hiding places in stone walls.[1] Another possible origin, comes from the practice of transporting pulpwood on special rail road cars. In the era of slavery, the pulpwood cars were built with an outer frame with the wood being stacked inside in moderately neat rows and stacks. However, given the nature of the cars, it was possible to smuggle persons in the pile itself; possibly giving rise to the term.

In addition to not using words with completely different etymologies but which share several key letters with the n-bomb, I try to also avoid saying “chigger” when I could just say “gnat,” because of the remote possibility that somebody thought I was dropping an n-bomb while sneezing, and am also worried about the word “bicentennial” (preferring instead to go with “200-year anniversary”) because of that one Richard Pryor album.

Niggling and niggerly have been widely used in other parts of the English speaking world recently where they have different slurs for African ancestory folks (or whatever their minority of choice to disparage is, e.g. Paki).  SAE is getting so wide spread, it’s common use is dying out elsewhere as well though.  Even so, I tend to give non-US speakers, especially of Scandinavian and Baltic countries, more of a benefit of a doubt than us native SAE speakers.

Perhaps it’s because I majored in nineteenth-century novels, but the world “niggardly” doesn’t strike me as odd.  It used to be more common than it is now, although whether that’s because people stopped using it because it sounded racist or whether it was already dying out, I don’t know.  “Niggling” seems to be a little more common, at least in writing.  But usually you can tell if someone is using it to be a jerk or because that word expresses the idea they want to convey.  Just like you can usually tell if someone is racist generally—eventually, they just give themselves away. 

I am surprised that Cain was willing to express any disapproval, however tepid, given his willingness to put up with the rest of the crap that the Republican Party dishes out, and paint every other black person as a brainwashed stooge.  Apparently even he has limits.

I encounter the word “niggling” a lot in everyday conversation. It may be a Southern thing, who knows. “Niggardly” is one I obviously don’t hear come up much, except for the occasional ass who, despite being older than 12, still thinks it’s funny.

Like others have said, there’s just no need to use the word “niggardly” when “miserly” or “cheap” or “frugal” will do just as well.

Agreed with everything in the post, except for this:

By opening his mouth and speaking the truth, Cain likely destroyed any chance he had of winning the GOP nomination.

Even before he spoke up, Cain had about as much chance of winning the GOP nomination as you did, Amanda.

Amanda

Jesse

I always assumed niggardly was like gyp; a negative trait/action derived from a nasty stereotype.

But….but…..“faggot” is a pile of sticks used for kindling! “Queer” meant odd or unusual until those nasty homa-sechs-yuls stole it.  “Gay” meant happy or carefree, until those nasty etc.

Language, how does it work?

Amanda

Jesse

Sorry!

Thank you, Scrumby!  As someone of Roma ancestry, I find myself correcting my liberal/progressive friends on this quite a bit.

Like others have said, there’s just no need to use the word “niggardly” when “miserly” or “cheap” or “frugal” will do just as well.

Funny though how when people protest at the use of the word “lame”, when the words “weak”, “feeble”, “stupid” or any number of other antonyms will do, that argument doesn’t seem to wash with many Pandagonians.  I’ve lost count of the number of times people have wailed at how it came to mean something derogatory in the 50’s, and since it’s meant that for over 50 years there’s no need to worry about it having a derogatory root.  I do wonder if people will be okay with that argument about the use of the word “gay” to mean roughly the same thing in 50 years.

Anyway - apologies for the derail.  Jesse, your piece is both righteous and funny, and what could be better than that?

Oops, I meant “synonym”, not “antonym”.  Writing in the middle of the night - fail!

scrumby @ 32—I always assumed niggardly was like gyp; a negative trait/action derived from a nasty stereotype.

It isn’t. It’s a completely unrelated word that just happens to sound the same as the racial slur. It’s derived from a very old word (meaning essentially “narrow”) cognate in a ton of old Scandinavian/Germanic languages.

From the Oxford English Dictionary: “Origin uncertain; probably < early Scandinavian (compare Old Icelandic hnøggr (Icelandic hnöggur ), Norwegian (Nynorsk) nøgg , Swedish njugg , Swedish regional nägg , nagg , early modern Danish nygger , adjectives, in sense ‘parsimonious, stingy’, cognate with Old English hnēaw stingy, Middle Dutch nauwe narrow, stingy (Dutch nauw narrow), Middle Low German nouwe narrow, scanty, Middle High German nou , nouwe narrow, exact, careful (German genau exact), probably ultimately related to the Indo-European base of classical Greek κνύειν to scratch (see need n.2)). Compare niggle v.2”

It has no relation to the Latin word “niger,” meaning “black,” from which the racial slur is derived.

I wouldn’t use it in conversation, though, precisely because it’s so easily and commonly misunderstood as a racist term. Since about 1800, people have been occasionally conflating “niggardly” with the racial slur—combining the original “stingy” meaning with various nasty racist stereotypes (ill-mannered, stupid, etc.) - according to the OED. At this point I think the majority of people understand it with that kind of conflated meaning now, so it’s just not a good word choice.

“How dare that damn nigger say I’m racist.”
—every social conservative in America

#26- Another word I avoid nowadays is “nega”. Once in college I refered to somebody’s self portrait as “Nega-Dudename”, since it was like a videogame alternate costume (or NegaDuck, if anyone watched that). A note of protest from one of my black classmates later, I realized it could be too easily misheard, or mumbled on my part.

The guy missed a use. Translated, “n——-head” was also used at least through the 70s as the generic term for wafer cookies with a dollop of marshmallow on them and coated in chocolate. In germany, no less, a country we know has never had any problems with racism.

I would feel sorry for Cain, but his current situation is pretty much in the dictionary next to “lie down with dogs”.

I know the history of the defenestration of the perfectly cromulent word “niggardly” and I get that even people who came at that word from a 19th century literary perspective need to give it up. But I’m really sad to have to give up “niggling” which really has the same zero connection to “the N word” and which is such a great word.  Like a lot of northerners I can’t even bring myself to say or spell out the N word even in theoretical or political discussions of its meaning and use. But I really hate to see niggardly and niggling go because I associate them with an entirely different language and history, a language and history in which they weren’t in any way associated with race and racism—there would have been other words that were racially charged but not these.  To my ear, as well, the “niggling” relates to other scandinavian “ing” endings like “nithing.”

aimai

I remember hearing Brazil nuts called “nigger toes”. Lots of people used “Eeny meeny miny moe, catch a nigger by the toe”, though I learned the rhyme with “tiger”. I have an old topographical map of my town which shows a “Nigger Canyon”; it has a different name now.

It’s hardly surprising, when most American towns were “Sundown towns” until the 1940’s at the earliest, to find that open racism was the norm.

You see, racism was actually so prevalent that we entered into a realm of post-racial racism, and to pretend that this racism was actually racial is so racist that fuck it I’m gonna go watch Do The Right Thing

The immediate moment of realization that I was reading one of Jesse’s posts.

Followed by an unfathomable sorrow that Jesse doesn’t post more.

Comment #36: Katherine
Funny though how when people protest at the use of the word “lame”, when the words “weak”, “feeble”, “stupid” or any number of other…

...And you’ll have found three other words used to describe people in medical documents and insults and slurs in the last couple centuries or so.

Please, why is ‘feeble’ or ‘stupid’ better than ‘lame’?

It’s hardly surprising, when most American towns were “Sundown towns” until the 1940’s at the earliest, to find that open racism was the norm.

And many of them were in the part of the world where the Ole Perfesser lives—and on that topic, I’m reminded of this piece from the much, much-missed Steve Gilliard, back when Instatwit was wearing a t-shirt with a bunch of guns on it and a “Celebrate Diversity” tagline.

I wonder if conservatives realize that what liberals care about isn’t so much that a hunting lodge was some racist name in the past, or that Perry’s dad bought the place.  Those places exist, and while we can change their names now, we shouldn’t white-wash the history of the place, just file it under, ‘probably not a good idea’.

But the thing liberals probably are laughing about is how conservatives are defending the name (when it’s obviously racist) and how every other Republican who’s had a racist connection goes down in flames when they try to campaign outside of their home court.  Now they’re hounding Cain to drop the subject, and of course he did - but this only goes to show further how little of a chance he had at the nomination.

It’s not like liberals are voting in the Republican primary, after all.

I wonder if any GOP types will call it “N***gate.”  You know, not because they like to say the word, or anything. 

Flashing now on Lenny Bruce talking about his trial and the obvious joy that many in the courtroom had in repeating his “bad” words over and over, in the safe context of denouncing them.

pseudonymous in nc, the point is that nearly any town used to be a sundown town. I’m in Laguna Beach, California; when I was in high school there was exactly one black family in town. When my mother went into real estate, she was cautioned not to show houses in one gated community to “those people”, which turned out to mean Jews. (She was torn between shock and amusement.)

...And you’ll have found three other words used to describe people in medical documents and insults and slurs in the last couple centuries or so.

Please, why is ‘feeble’ or ‘stupid’ better than ‘lame’?

Well, call me picky, but I tend to follow the lead of campaigners for the rights of those with disabilities.  Just like, if I want to find out what might be deemed offensive to people of colour, I follow the lead of people of colour, rather than people who try to wriggle out of things by being excessively pedantic in defence of the use of a word that victims of oppression have protested at.

Seriously, what is it about the word “lame” that people insist it is somehow a sacrosanct part of their vocabulary that they absolutely cannot give up, even if asked to repeatedly by disability rights campaigners?  In the comments above, people are generally agreeing that a word that is etymologically unrelated to a racial slur, but sounds like it, shouldn’t be used, because it might be accidentally associated with it.  And another commenter reasonably points out that there are plenty of alternatives in the vast and flexible English language anyway.

But “lame”?  Make the same point about alternatives - here are some more: pathetic, rubbish, useless - and suddenly people take out their dictionaries and make as many excuses as they possibly can why this word is absolutely fine.  Despite the aforementioned minority group objecting to it.  Are disabled people as a group not entitled to consideration?  Are four letters so utterly irreplaceable that disabled people get discounted for other people’s linguistic convenience?

“Ni**erhead” was, among others: Yes… Obviously a word so in-offensive and rich in historical context that the author couldn’t bring himself to type out the g’s.

the point is that nearly any town used to be a sundown town.

And for parts of eastern Tennessee, you don’t use the past tense.

This was a big thing in 99: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/williams/williams020499.htm

The general attitude at the time was that he was horribly wronged but I tend to think, as you guys suggest, he was probably being an asshole.
Comment #24: typist

Perhaps you tend to think all 44 year old white guys are assholes until proven otherwise, if ever.

For people who didn’t bother to read the article on your link, the guy resigned promptly and did not press to be rehired.  He did say this, as quoted in the article:

Howard, 44, said yesterday that he never felt “victimized” but that the experience has given him “a certain awareness” he did not have before the incident occurred.

“I just feel very pleased that this whole thing has a silver lining,” he said. “The silver lining is that this has led to a discussion that can help everyone understand each other better. . . . I used to think it would be great if we could all be colorblind. That’s naive, 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.”

Yeah, sounds like a real asshole. (eyeroll)

He used it perfectly correctly, since niggardly connotes tightness in managing funds.  It was unwise, though, since it is so readily misunderstood or misheard.  “Stingy” works just as well and has little power to hurt or be mis-heard.

So much power has been invested in the word in the last ten years that even discussion about the word cannot include use of it without causing insulted feelings.  This was highlighted by a recent discussion on the View with Barbara Walters.  Whoopi Goldberg claimed that younger folk have removed the destructive power of the word by minimizing and trivializing it I wish she was right but she’s wrong. It has more power to hurt now than it ever did. 

I don’t mourn the loss of the word from modern vocabulary, but I do find it unfortunate that people of good will and naive white folk are unnecessarily pilloried for it’s non-pejorative use.  Also, I am also sad that some folk are more injured now by a non-pejorative use of it than ever before.  Also sad that “Huckleberry Finn” is being forced out of school curriculum over the word’s power.

I see objections to phasing out “niggardly” exactly like the objections to the repurposing of “gay” - was this really a word you were using so commonly that you can’t get along without it? Outside of one popular Christmas carol and the Flintstones theme song, who used gay in the last 50 years, to be so upset about it?

The reason why there’s so much resistance to giving up the word “lame” in the sense of “pathetic” is precisely *because* there is no good alternative. “Weak” and “feeble” are also pejorative toward the disabled and “stupid” means something different.

I have experimented with “fail”, but “fail” is not an adjective and “full of fail” is too long.

However, I think I have found the perfect alternative—the British slang word “pants.” Since it basically means underpants, it’s not pejorative toward any specific group of humans any more than “asshole” is, and it means the exact same thing in its slang usage that “lame” does in its slang usage—something is pathetic, uncool or a failure.

Try it today. If you would have said “That idea is completely lame”, say instead “That idea is totally pants.” Even people who have never heard the term pants used that way pick it up easily from the context. Admittedly Americans, who use pants to mean the long things that cover your entire legs rather than the short things that just cover your crotch, may not instantly get why this is funny, but Americans have great fun with the pants game (where you replace random words in sayings with the word pants, such as “To boldly go where no pants have gone before” or “A long time ago, in a pants far away” or whatever), so I think Americans think pants are funny, and therefore it’ll work here as well as in Britain.

You can even say “Paaaaaaants” the way you would have said “Laaaaaaame”. In many American English dialects, it has the same vowel sound as in lame.

Actually, Alara, I’ve adopted ‘crap’ as an adjective from English slang, as a “not very good, really” synonym where I would use “lame’ if I was in a different mood. Really, I can’t language police myself or I’ll forget was I was going to say even more than I already do. Goddamn goldfish memory.

I don’t quite know what I could have been reading, as I’m not particularly into 19th century fiction, but ‘niggardy’ is a completely normal word for me. Most likely HPL, as he was always fond of such language, but I think it might have come from my OTHER source of all vocabulary, Victor Von Doom.

Crissa @ 47:  as a voter who has not specified a party, I can vote either ballot during the primary in MA.  I often vote the GOP one when the Dems either have no contested races, the outcome is pretty much set in stone or there is a sane GOP candidate who wouldn’t completely destroy the state if he were elected and his opponent(s) are completely batshit nuts.  The first two happen fairly often; the third, not so much.

Speaking as an English woman, “pants” and “crap” are an integral part of my vocabulary.  Feel free to take them on!

I’ve used crap most of my life, and I was born in IA and mostly grew up on the west coast of the US. It is not just Brit-English slang.  Pants, on the other hand, is a new one for me.  Katherine, can you provide some more proper examples of usage?