McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]

[Victor Steinbok]

As for adj/sing.n. distinction, I could have been more clear and, yes,
accurate. But I described it as "individual" rather than a grammatical
category.

As for South Africans, a SA acquaintance in the Netherlands routinely
uses "coloured(s)" for all non-Caucasians--but, of course, he's no
longer in SA. I suppose, it could be worse--he could have used any one
of a range of Afrikaans racial insults.

     VS-)

On 1/18/2010 5:50 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:
>> In my own limited experience, "coloreds," pl., was mostly associated with
>> white, blue-collar speakers (like Archie Bunker on "All in the Family,"
>> beginning ca1971).  As such speakers seem more likely to be crudely and
>> openly prejudiced, the noun became offensive before the adjective did. I
>> haven't heard it in a quarter century or more.
>>
>> I don't think anybody uses "colored" as a sing. n. in the U.S. I certainly
>> can't recall hearing it.
>>
>> JL
>>
> I wonder whether this is a case where the words "coloured" and "nigger" spin
> differently in the US and the UK?  I'm not sure how much to the fore this
> is, but in any use of the word "coloured" [sic? -- not "colored"?] I'd have
> a sense that it was used as one of the categories of race in apartheid South
> Africa -- White/Black/Coloured.
>
> Similarly, "nigger" in the UK, while usually* offensive and racist, embraced
> a wider spectrum of people than it did in the US, including Chinese and
> those from the Indian subcontinent, as well as West Indians and
> African-Americans.
>
> Sort of like, "I'm not a mysoginist -- I hate *everyone."
>
> Robin
>
> (I put in a caveat star to "usually*", as I'm not quite sure how to deal
> with the way it's used by P.G.Wodehouse when he uses the term "nigger
> minstrel".  Especially as up till yesterday evening, I wasn't aware that
> this was a term which apparently didn't run in the US.
>
> Two countries divided, etc.
>
> RH.)
>

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