Nigger vs. Colored, et al.

Thu Mar 3 01:25:39 UTC 2011

i want to point out in this discussion that in current usage for many speakers, the form nigga has no racial reference. It's essentially dude, but for a different demographic. I'm not justifying it or not. I'm describing the usage I saw over the various years I worked with and did research with inner-city kids. A lot would not use it, but that was more of a political statement or to show membership in a non-hip-hop oriented peer culture (I don't think I ever heard nerds or skaters use it). In fact, I've been called it (I'm a middle aged Jewish guy) with a low hipness quotient. It's been hurled at me as an insult, affectionately, and as a joke. 

The kids were perfectly able to articulate the difference between nigga and nigger, which for them had a racial reference primarily as a slur. I had used the first form, (which I wouldn't do) I suspect would have gotten anything from a funny look to something like "oh, you darin') or something. The second term would have been immediately been taken as racist. Also, the term's usage was not limited to Blacks, but was used as heavily by Latinos and occasionally by other groups including Whites. As long as they were more or less inner-city, it was not particularly noticed. 

Michael Newman
Associate Professor of Linguistics
Queens College/CUNY
michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu

On Mar 2, 2011, at 2:18 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

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> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Nigger vs. Colored, et al.
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> 
> At 3/2/2011 11:32 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>> I thought all disciplines were like that.
>> 
>> But back to the point.  What I can tell you from personal investigation is
>> that the large number of eighteenth-century escaped-slave notices reprinted
>> in the 4 vols. of Lathan A. Windley's _Runaway Slave Advertisements_ _all_
>> use the word "negro" and eschew "nigger."
>> 
>> Slave-trade advertisements similarly use "negro" - I'm tempted to say
>> exclusively.
> 
> Jon, in the vast majority of, not exclusively in, 18th century
> newspaper advertisements and articles, whether for runaways, sales,
> give-aways (of children or infants), crimes, or escapes from jail,
> "Negro" was capitalized.  Whether this was because all nouns were
> capitalized (generally, if not always) or because "Negro" was thought
> of as a proper noun I'm not sure we can tell -- although one hint may
> be that it was not often italicized, as names of persons and places
> generally were.
> 
> I do agree that "Negro" was used exclusively. Just a couple of days
> ago I did some searching in Early American Newspapers and Google
> Books.  Certainly there are false positives, false negatives,
> duplicates, etc., and I did not attempt to separate adjectival
> uses.  Nor did my searches distinguish capitalization.  But the
> numbers are suggestive.  I searched both all dates and before Jan. 1,
> 1800.  (Probably a little hard to comprehend in the form below, but I
> don't know how well plain text will preserve a tabular format.)
> 
> Negro  --   EAN all dates: 219,000; <1800: 93,500.  GB all dates: 6 x
> 10**6;  <1800:  76,000.
> 
> nigger -- EAN all dates: 674; <1800: 20 -- of which *zero* are
> genuine (not false positives).  GB -- I didn't count.
>      Probably a number of false positives.  I looked at the earliest
> instances quickly, and the first genuine hit I noticed  was 1810, in
> an a piece the reader will presume is a letter written by a Negro,
> and in dialect.  (I didn't look for anything later.)
> 
> niger -- EAN all dates:  4400;  <1800:  970.  GB -- I didn't count.
>      Probably a number of false positives.  I looked at the earliest
> instances quickly, and the first genuine hit I noticed, curiously,
> was in the 1760s, the "HMS Niger" (in battle).  "Niger" occurs
> earlier (OED s.v. "nigger" says 1574, but also says "nigger" does not
> occur with hostile intent until 1775), but perhaps not in (American)
> newspapers.
> 
> African American --  EAN all dates:  36; <1800:  5 -- of which *zero*
> are genuine.  GB all dates: 2.3 x 10**6;  <1800: 42.
>      Probably many false positives.  One genuine instance (perhaps
> the earliest) is 1822 Sep 6, Enquirer.
> 
> African [NOT eliminating "African American"] -- EAN all dates:
> 32,000;  <1800:  6800.  GB all dates:  1.0 x 10**7;  <1800:  36,400.
> 
> Joel
> 
>> In fact, well into the 19th C., the "n-word" appears almost exclusively in
>> colloquial contexts. My feeling is that the Abolition debate tended to bring
>> out more heated language in the South.
>> 
>> So whatever even slave-holding whites may have been *saying* in the 18th and
>> early 19th C., they seem to have regarded as the n-word as too crude or
>> low-class for formal use.
>> 
>> This may have contributed to the misapprehension that "nigger" is simply
>> a contemptuous "mispronunciation" of "Negro."  See HDAS.
>> 
>> JL
>> 
>> On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 10:59 AM, Hunter, Lynne R CIV SPAWARSYSCEN-PACIFIC,
>> 71700 <lynne.hunter at navy.mil> wrote:
>> 
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>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       "Hunter, Lynne R CIV SPAWARSYSCEN-PACIFIC, 71700"
>>>             <lynne.hunter at NAVY.MIL>
>>> Subject:      Nigger vs. Colored, et al.
>>> 
>>> 
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> 
>>> `A propos of "Negro/Negro, black/Black," can anybody tell me when
>>> "nigger" began to be avoided in polite company in various parts of the
>>> US (or the British Isles)? Any info about the circumstances under which
>>> that term came to be replaced by "colored" or "negro"?
>>> 
>>> Droll (I thought) observation from a student's paper: "...linguistics:
>>> the discipline that never apologizes for itself."
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> 
>>> Lynne Hunter
> 
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