Potential racism of "auction block"

[Mark A Mandel]

On Fri, 2 Aug 2002, James A. Landau wrote:

#Lets try the following:  Begin the sentence "I used a spade to..."  Before
#you can get out enough of the rest of the sentence to establish the context,
#even a thick-skinned listener is likely to wonder whether you employed a
#shovel or are sneering at an African-American.

I hope not. I rarely use "use", in the usual sense of the word, with an
animate object; "using" people has a strong negative connotation for me.

#Or the following: "The picnic grounds at..."  Again, before you establish a
#context, the listener might wonder whether the location is a place popular
#for outdoor lunches or notorious for having been the site of several
#lynchings.

Again: I don't think anyone would automatically wonder that unless they
were predisposed to find racism. (They'd probably also object to a
suggestion that the committee draw up a white paper.) You find what
you're looking for. -- Or if they'd been told, and believed, the
etymythology under discussion, which I find myself more and more
inclined to curse at.

#I remember the reaction of a black co-worker when he heard someone refer to a
#US Army base in New Jersey known as "Pickatinny Arsenal".  We had to explain
#to him that the name was "Pickatinny" and not "Pickaninny Arsenal."  No, he
#was not outraged or insulted, but he was most definitely disconcerted.

Different situation: mishearing. "Pickaninny" is a racist word, and
AFAIK "Pickatinny" isn't used in anything except the name of that
institution, and probably some nearby place name(s) that nobody
non-local could be expected to know.

#I think this was the same man who told me the reason "behind the eight ball"
#meant trouble was because the eight-ball was black.  (Although neither of us
#played pool, we frequently found ourselves near the pool table in the
#dayroom.)

See comment above on "picnic".

#I suggest that blacks who dislike the word "picnic" are thinking of
#"pickaninny" rather than "lynching."

Plausible... but what reasons do *they* give?

#Then there is the word "n...ardly" which I find embarrassing just to see in
#print, and I'm aware of its true etymology.

#Now say "n...ardly" and even the visiting Scotsmen aren't going to think you
#meant "penurious".

I'm not going to try to guess about Scots (the language or the
individuals).

#  "N...ardly", which is not a widely used word (probably because of
#its too-close similarity to the N-word), is phonetically too close to the
#N-word to be used safely.

True, alas. But I don't think it would be very common even without that.
A relevant question here is, how common is it in texts from before
"n****r" started becoming unacceptable? I'm not sure the question is
worth the effort to answer it, but if you're interested in the influence
of the word taboo on a word resembling the taboo word, it's one place to
start.


-- Mark A. Mandel