the n word: on its way out?

[Wilson Gray]

Say on, Charlie!

-Wilson

On 3/9/07, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: the n word: on its way out?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thurmond  said "nigger," straight up. I wasn't there, but I saw the
> original MovieTone News (or whatever it was called) version that the
> TV clip was excerpted from, not just the TV clip. Of course, what I
> remember hearing back then is irrelevant, since he quite clearly says,
> _on that clip shown on TV_, "nigger," as any random white Southerner
> would have said, in those days. I found it to be truly astounding that
> TV commentators and newspaper transcripts of what he said replaced
> that obvious "nigger" with the pswaydo-euphemism, "nigra."
>
> I find it truly astounding now that anyone here can speak of giving
> one of the greatest racists in United States history "the benefit of
> the doubt." Doubt?! What doubt?! How can anyone who knows anything at
> all about the history of American racism even *dream* of giving Strom
> Thurmond and his ilk any kind of benefiit? Is it really the case that
> people here are devoid of any understanding of what Thurmond and the
> Dixiecrats stood for?
>
> Fitzpatrick, the late, great editorial cartoonist of the St. Louis
> Post-Dispatch, compared Thurmond, Bilbo, Talmadge, Eastland, Tillman,
> etc., to no less a light than Hitler himself.
>
> Well, maybe you had to have been there.
>
> -Wilson
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: the n word: on its way out?
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On 3/8/07, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > IIRC, George Wallace was a notable utterer of "Nigra."  He may have
> > > switched to something else after he mellowed late in life.
> >
> > Don't know about Wallace, but Strom Thurmond used "Nigra" [nIgr@]
> > during his 1948 presidential campaign. In his notorious speech to the
> > "Dixiecrat" convention (resurrected during the Trent Lott brouhaha in
> > 2002), Thurmond spoke of "the Nigra race" (some claim he said "the
> > nigger race", though Thurmond wasn't known to use the word "nigger" in
> > public).
> >
> > From the sound clip of Thurmond's speech, he's clearly not saying
> > [nigroU]/[nIgroU], but it's difficult to tell whether he's saying
> > [nIgr@] or [nIg@] because of the following [r] in "race":
> >
> > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=865900
> >
> > If we were to give Thurmond the benefit of the doubt, we might say
> > that "Nigra race" came out as something close to [nIg@ reIs] because
> > of dissimilation (cf. the loss of the first [r] for both rhotic and
> > non-rhotic speakers in such words as "prerogative" or "surprise").
> > But as Wilson and Jon suggest, this phonetic similarity was useful for
> > speakers like Thurmond, since it allowed "Nigra" to be heard however
> > the audience wanted to hear it, all the while giving the speaker
> > plausible deniability.
> >
> >
> > --Ben Zimmer
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
>                                                       -Sam'l Clemens
>
> Dope wil get you through times of no money better than money will get
> you through times of no dope.
> -----
>                                          -Free-Wheeling Franklin
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                                      -Sam'l Clemens

Dope wil get you through times of no money better than money will get
you through times of no dope.
-----
                                         -Free-Wheeling Franklin

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org