[Ads-l] "Niger" or "Niger"?

Dan Goncharoff thegonch at GMAIL.COM
Thu Oct 19 14:36:40 UTC 2017


I would guess in 1900, when the French took over.

DanG

On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 10:06 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> In my day, people said "NYE-jer." Nowadays, except for a courageous
> journalist in the Rose Garden recently, they're all saying "Nee-ZHAIR."
>
> Sounds so much  more sophisticated, _non_?
>
> When was the big switch? The Random House College Dictionary of 1982 gives
> only "NYE-jer."  I first heard Nee-ZHAIR" in the early '80s.
>
> JL
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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