N-word Hill, Calif.

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:14 PM -0500 5/7/11, Dan Goodman wrote:
>On 5/7/2011 8:17 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>>Subject:      N-word Hill, Calif.
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>http://www.newser.com/article/d9n1hri82/in-calif-graves-relocated-from-a-gold-rush-town-named-negro-hill-still-carry-slur.html
>>
>>A GB check shows that the town was referred to almost from the beginning as
>>both "Negro Hill" and "Nigger Hill," though "Negro Hill" does seem to have
>>primacy.
>
>I've heard Coon Rapids, Minnesota referred to as "Colored Gentleman
>Rapids."  I don't know if that was the speaker's coinage, or something
>more common.
>
Sounds a bit too reminiscent of the "Back in the African-American"
story, which supposedly (but apparently didn't actually) involve an
honest-to-goodness global search-and-replace.  In the Coon Rapids
case, we'd presumably also end up with the formerly well-known
Beatles song "Rocky Racolored-gentleman".  None of this (beyond the
Negro Hill case) seems plausible to me.

LH

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