N-word Hill, Calif.

[Dan Goodman]

On 5/7/2011 6:53 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: N-word Hill, Calif.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 4:14 PM -0500 5/7/11, Dan Goodman wrote:
>> On 5/7/2011 8:17 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
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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.

The "Colored Gentleman Rapids" thing was 1) oral and 2) a deliberate joke.


--
Dan Goodman
dsgood at LJ, DW, IJ, Twtr

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