... woodpile

[Douglas G. Wilson]

At 09:15 AM 9/21/00 -0500, you wrote:
>A Murie wrote:
> > "Nigger in the woodpile" always meant some hidden nefarious thing, not
>necessarily identified or even known.
>
>I have *never* heard the phrase used in this way.  It has always meant a
>hidden element in the bloodline that makes the person have dark skin, hair,
>eyes, etc., specifically if the rest of the family is very fair.  A similar
>expression is "he/she belongs to the milkman," when the person being
>described doesn't look like anyone else in the family.

I have only heard the expression rarely in either sense (it's considered
taboo or impolite by many). Usually it has meant "catch" or "unexpected
problem" ("hidden nefarious thing"). On the few occasions when I
encountered the "black ancestor" sense, I assumed a simple error versus
deliberate metaphor or joke. But the "Random House Historical Dictionary of
American Slang" shows both senses.

RHHDAS shows the sense of (1) "hidden nefarious thing" from 1843, the sense
of (2) "black ancestor" from 1953.

It is my belief that the use of the expression in the first sense was
virtually obsolete in many circles by the time of the origin of the second
sense. Thus (I think) many people around 1950 still recognized the
expression but no longer remembered what it meant, and therefore applied it
to something different.

-- Doug Wilson