Ofay (1920-1924)

[Wilson Gray]

On Sep 6, 2004, at 5:40 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: Ofay (1920-1924)
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> On a related note:  I was recently reading S.M. Stirlings "Islands in
> the
> Sea of Time" series of alternate history novels.  In them, a major
> character
> is a black woman Coast Guard officer from the Gullah region of South
> Carolina.  She refers to whites, occasionally, as "buckra".  That's a
> new
> one on me -- is it derogatory (it didn't seem so, from the context)?
>
> Is it related to (insert Strom Thurmond accent) "nigra"?
>

FWIW, it's in DARE. I've only seen it in print. Since it's only a
literary term for me, too, I have no idea whether it is or was
derogatory. It's reputed to be from some West African language, so
there's no connection between "buckra" and "nigra,"
which latter, even in its heyday, was also pretty much only a literary
term. A lot of people outside of the South thought that it was to be
pronounced "naigr at ." I heard many of Missa Strom's speeches live back
in the day and I'm pretty certain that he said "nigger," not "nigra,"
whenever the occasion arose. At that time and in that place, whether
speaking privately or speaking publicly before a white audience, in a
Southern state during the time of Jim Crow, there simply would have
been no reason whatever for him not to say "nigger" and every reason
for him to say it. Saying "nigra" would have made him sound like some
kind of nigger-loving pussy.

-Wilson Gray