The N-word Yet Again
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The following is a guest post by Tony Thorne of King's College London, originally appearing on his blog. It provides an alternative view to that expressed by Geoff Pullum in his post, "Tory uses N-word… not."
On July 10 Samir Dathi tweeted: "Anne Marie Morris suspended for using N-word. Good. But why is someone who called black people 'picaninnies' our foreign secretary?"
Morris, the Conservative MP for Newton Abbot's use of the phrase 'nigger in the woodpile' provoked widespread condemnation and resulted in her suspension and an abject public apology, but the UK public and media have a very short memory. It was far from an isolated instance of this crass archaism being invoked by British politicians, as this website records.
The expression originated in the USA (Jonathon Green, aka Mister Slang, has a first citation as the name of a popular song from the 1840s) where it was usually associated with an image of a runaway slave in concealment, but it is in the UK where it has enjoyed a lengthy and unfortunate afterlife.
Dragged into 'nigger in the woodpile' talk. Not slang, so haven't researched it. Must however be racist. Origin 1840s popular song. pic.twitter.com/BQ1bM3z2IG
— Jonathon Green (@MisterSlang) July 11, 2017
I can testify that the phrase was used by middle-class speakers in conversation in the UK the 1950s and 1960s. It was possible to use the n-word (not the whole phrase) in Britain up to the end of the 1950s without having a conscious racist intention. The WW2 flying ace Guy Gibson, for instance, named his beloved pet dog 'Nigger' and I can remember myself using the word in a public swimming pool in suburban London in about 1959 to point out a black child playing nearby (a rare thing in our lower middle-class neighbourhood). Even then my father rebuked me very sternly, saying "we don't say that and you mustn't use the word!"
Yasmeen Serhan reported on the MP's gaffe for American readers in The Atlantic.
Attempts were made, by Tory supporters and some linguists, to excuse the MP on the grounds that she is 60 years old and so for her generation the words in question carry little or less force. Others pointed out that inadvertent racism is nonetheless racism, but where quibbles about slurs and taboos are concerned, I think the acid test is actually to debate them in real-life environments. I have discussed the n-word and similar controversies with a range of young people and with older members of BAME communities and they are simply not acceptable. Quite apart from clumsiness and insensitivity on the part of somebody in public life, it's arguable, too, that Morrison used the expression wrongly: it doesn't mean an unanticipated or an unappreciated future eventuality, but a hidden snag. The nuances – the semantic components and assumptions embedded in the phrase are interesting and challenging to unpick – the connotations of such usages may also mutate over time. Potential confusions are illustrated by the several interpretations or misunderstandings posted on Urban Dictionary.
Finally, on a very personal note, it occurred to me that finding an escaped slave today, perhaps in the woodshed behind a prosperous suburban or rural home, is entirely possible in a Britain where traffickers and slavemasters prey on migrants, refugees and the poor and desperate. (Oh and, on the subject of the Foreign Secretary a Twitter poll resulted in this from @BrianElects: "Whether B[oris] Johnson should also be expelled for calling black people 'piccaninnies' with 'watermelon smiles': Yes: 95% No: 5%.") [As noted below, the poll is satirical.]
David L said,
July 12, 2017 @ 4:17 pm
When I was a child in the UK in the 1960s, our "eeny meeny miney mo" chant continued with "catch a nigger by the toe."
I assume that has died out.
Bob Moore said,
July 12, 2017 @ 4:58 pm
In the late 1950s or early 1960s growing up in Texas, I first heard the phrase "nigger in the woodpile" used in reference to a person who identified as white possibly having a black ancestor. I don't know if this was an established usage, or if it was a novel application of the idiom to a situation in which the "woodpile" was metaphorical, but the "nigger" was literal.
Jonathan D said,
July 12, 2017 @ 5:47 pm
In case it isn't clear, @BrianElects is not conducting twitter polls, but presenting satirical poll results on twitter.
Jake said,
July 12, 2017 @ 8:17 pm
@David: yes and no : http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-27253880
Christopher Barts said,
July 12, 2017 @ 10:33 pm
She's 60. That means she was born in or around 1957. That means she was in her pre-teens at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. That means she's nowhere near old enough for age to be an excuse. Not even with an ocean in between. I don't know why they keep bringing it up.
Mark P said,
July 12, 2017 @ 11:32 pm
@Bob Moore. I grew up in Georgia ( I'm 67) and that was what I assumed the phrase meant, although I don't remember hearing it much.
Also, I find it hard to accept that someone who is 60 doesn't know that the word nigger is racist. Damn. I'm older than that and it's pretty clear to me.
Tye said,
July 13, 2017 @ 12:34 am
@David L When I was a child growing up in the US Pacific Northwest in the 80s our "eeny meeny miney mo" chant continued with "catch a tigger by the toe". It wasn't until I was much older that I learned we were chanting a revised version.
TONY THORNE said,
July 13, 2017 @ 12:57 am
Thanks to Ben Zimmer for the clarification re @BrianElects, and for all the useful comments.
The playground rhyme was still heard to my knowledge in the UK in the 80s but with 'monkey' substituted and kids apparently unaware of original version. Jeremy Clarkson's broadcast use of it was characteristically a provocation directed at his notion of a 'politically correct' constituency. The sense of the phrase referring to black ancestry is attested to in several places, including Urban Dictionary, so that some linguists may see it as an acceptable/established usage on that basis.
Ryan said,
July 13, 2017 @ 3:13 am
@Tye and Tony Thorne:
To say that the "catch a nigger by the toe" version is the original version isn't necessarily accurate, since similar, if not totally identical, versions of the rhyme have existed in some form or another long before anyone officially attested to this version.
Incidentally, I was never even aware of the racist version until the 2000's, when an African-American plane passenger tried (unsuccessfully) to sue a flight attendant for saying, "eeny meeny miny moe, pick a seat it's time to go."
Bev Rowe said,
July 13, 2017 @ 4:14 am
I can hardly believe my own (British) memory (such as it is at age 82) but I'm pretty sure the word "nigger" was used as an official colour name for fabrics when i was young, possibly as late as the 1950s.
(I have just checked with my wife, a youngster of 78). She remembers the colour was "nigger brown".)
Philip Taylor said,
July 13, 2017 @ 4:34 am
I am now 70, and when I was young (less then ten years of age) I visited my maternal grandfather in Eltham Cottage Hospital, where he spoke most favourably of "that lovely little nigger nurse who looks after me". The phrase has always remained with me, reminding me that "nigger" is not necessarily a term of abuse or even of depreciation, and I had the opportunity to discuss this with the wife of the President of our local photographic club (both she and her husband are ethnically West Indian — I do not know from which island, but both are patently black). She was not in the least offended by my use of the word "nigger" in recounting this story, and agreed that, as my grandfather had used it, the word was completely unexceptionable at that time, and was still unexceptionable when used today in discussions of the language of the 50's/60's. And like Ben, I too remember "catch a nigger by his toe", just as I remember Agatha Christie's "ten little nigger boys" and the poem from which she apparently took the title ("Ten little nigger boys went out to dine\\One choked his little self, and then there were nine", etc.).
Would I use the word "nigger" today ? Of course not, except in contexts such as this. But I continue to have no problem with "coloured lady", as opposed to the rather ridiculous-sounding and convoluted "female person of colour", yet would never speak or write of "a black man", though I think I might, if forced, speak of "that black gentleman over there", but only if it was necessary for the purposes of absolute clarity and unambiguity of identification.
Philip Taylor said,
July 13, 2017 @ 4:59 am
Following up on Bev Rowe's reference to "nigger brown" as a colour, I certainly remember it on a Silko label, and a quick check with the Google n-gram viewer shews it still as being used in 2008 : Arresting Delia: An Inspector Cleveland Mystery Paperback – 18 Mar 2008 by S. Fowler Wright (Author), which contains the following :
Philip Taylor said,
July 13, 2017 @ 5:11 am
"Sylko", not "Silko". Flickr has a photograph.
ajay said,
July 13, 2017 @ 5:59 am
"She's 60. That means she was born in or around 1957. That means she was in her pre-teens at the height of the Civil Rights Movement."
Thank you for contributing to today's edition of "People Who Don't Seem To Realise That There Are Countries Other Than The USA".
The "civil rights movement" in the context of UK politics (yes! Quirky "United Kingdom" Has Own Laws, Politics!) would mean the effort during the 1960s to gain equal rights for Catholics in Northern Ireland.
RP said,
July 13, 2017 @ 7:14 am
For a look at how things have changed relatively quickly, it's well worth a look at the theyworkforyou website linked in Thorne's second paragraph. You can see it was regularly used in parliamentary debates until the 80s and that the debates from 1978 show that the then (Labour) foreign secretary used the idiom at a EEC meeting in Brussels – though this usage is criticised by at least one of the MPs.
My late grandfather (b.1923) would sometimes use this expression as late as the 90s, but even he would often accompany it with a quasi-apologetic aside. Grandad denied being a "racialist", as he called it, but he also suggested that the South African apartheid system was unfairly maligned, and his entire outlook was staunchly rightwing.
RP said,
July 13, 2017 @ 7:53 am
@Philip Taylor,
That 2008 book is actually a reprint of a book from 1933.
J.W. Brewer said,
July 13, 2017 @ 7:55 am
I expect I am not the only American reader of this post who had never previously seen the British jargon "BAME communities" and was initially caught short by it. (Not that all LL posts need or ought to be written in AmEng or edited for ease of comprehension from an AmEng-centric perspective – this can be a useful way of learning things about other Englishes, which presumably is the sort of thing LL readers ought to be up for.) My first context-driven guess-before-googling as to what it might mean was close but not exact, but I am heartened to see that even before I was familiar with it a controversy had emerged about whether it ought to be replaced by some other jargon: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/22/black-asian-minority-ethnic-bame-bme-trevor-phillips-racial-minorities
Narmitaj said,
July 13, 2017 @ 8:02 am
My mother lived on a farm in Kent (England) as a child, and they had a horse called Nigger – though that was in the 1930s. She never used/uses the n-word herself, except to mention the horse, but my partner's mother (mid-80s) usually notes/grumbles with slight disapproval that "you can't say nigger" these days.
In 2007 there was a Chinese company who got in some trouble for labelling a fabric "nigger brown" due, according to Snopes, some outdated translation software.
Anne Marie Morris was apparently a lawyer and a marketing director for global companies before becoming an MP – roles, as the Daily Mail notes, might have made her accustomed to picking her words carefully in professional situations.
Before that she was a student at Oxford University, presumably somewhere around 1975-1979 if she went at 18 or 19. As a student myself at the end of the 70s (though not Oxford) I was well aware of racial tension, the National Front, Rock Against Racism (founded 1976), racist skinheads and racist language – it was in the air and the news a lot. Morris, as a wannabe lawyer, was presumably aware of the 1976 Race Relations Act even as a 19-yo.
So "being 60" doesn't make her so old that she predated public concern about racist language during her consciousness-raising student years. Though I expect as a pre-teen in the 1960s there was a lot of casual racist and anti-semitic language sloshing about her school and peer group and the environment generally, and no doubt some of that got deeply embedded.
Victor Mair said,
July 13, 2017 @ 8:09 am
Back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, when my father (who was a machinist) spoke of "the Japs", he always did so with great admiration for their skill. There wasn't the slightest trace of condescension or deprecation in his voice when he said it.
Philip Taylor said,
July 13, 2017 @ 8:13 am
RP: "That 2008 book is actually a reprint of a book from 1933". I did wonder, and tried to find out, but failed. I am glad that you succeeded where I did not. Thank you.
Marc Foster said,
July 13, 2017 @ 8:23 am
To add to Bob Moore and Mark P, I'm 60 and grew up in Tennessee and that is also my memory of the phrase so I would say that it was widespread in the American South, anyway. The metaphorical meaning would be an unpleasant fact that one is trying to conceal.
languagehat said,
July 13, 2017 @ 9:02 am
Also, I find it hard to accept that someone who is 60 doesn't know that the word nigger is racist. Damn. I'm older than that and it's pretty clear to me.
Same here, and I thank Ben for making this much-needed response post.
ajay said,
July 13, 2017 @ 9:29 am
Before that she was a student at Oxford University, presumably somewhere around 1975-1979 if she went at 18 or 19. As a student myself at the end of the 70s (though not Oxford) I was well aware of racial tension, the National Front, Rock Against Racism (founded 1976), racist skinheads and racist language – it was in the air and the news a lot. Morris, as a wannabe lawyer, was presumably aware of the 1976 Race Relations Act even as a 19-yo.
I'm sure she was aware of it. But that doesn't mean that she agreed with any of it. To take an analogy: twenty years later, as a student in the mid-90s, I was aware of the gay rights movement, Pride marches, agitation for civil partnerships, equal rights on adoption and so forth. I was also aware that some of my fellow students, led by the university's Christian Union, were also aware of it, were vigorously opposed to it, and had no problem saying so loudly and offensively in public. I should imagine that the Christians in question feel much the same way today as they did then.
Stephen said,
July 13, 2017 @ 9:53 am
@Mark P said,
Also, I find it hard to accept that someone who is 60 doesn't know that the word nigger is racist.
Except the word in isolation is not racist. It can be used in a racist way but I don't think that anyone reckons that black rap artists using the word are being racist.
As in the example that Narmitaj gives, some black animals (certainly in Britain) used to be called Nigger, others were called Blackie. Hence the codeword used in Operation Chastise, from the name of Gibson's dog.
In Britain Paki, short for Pakistani, was used as a racial slur in the 60s-80s. I am told that in Australia it is just used as a abbreviation (cf. Aussie) with no racist connotation. Wikipedia tells me that it is also not seen as racist in the US.
Damn. I'm older than that and it's pretty clear to me.
And you grew up in Georgia not in Sussex. I bet there are other linguistic differences between the places.
@Bev Rowe @Philip Taylor
My wife has a reel of that thread, inherited from her grandmother.
languagehat said,
July 13, 2017 @ 10:03 am
Except the word in isolation is not racist. It can be used in a racist way but I don't think that anyone reckons that black rap artists using the word are being racist.
Oh for God's sake. Does it really, in 2017, have to be explained yet again that the word is utterly different when used by black people? Do you not get the concept of in-group vs. out-group?
And you grew up in Georgia not in Sussex. I bet there are other linguistic differences between the places.
But there was a lot of racism in both. Are you arguing that the fact that people in Sussex seem to have taken longer to wake up to it is a good thing?
Bob Ladd said,
July 13, 2017 @ 10:14 am
@David L, @Tye, @TONY THORNE: My own children's version of "eeny meeny miney mo", acquired in an Edinburgh state primary school during the 1990s, had "tigger", not "monkey". As far as I remember they were unaware of any other version.
tsts said,
July 13, 2017 @ 10:25 am
Languagehat: "But there was a lot of racism in both. Are you arguing that the fact that people in Sussex seem to have taken longer to wake up to it is a good thing?"
Or maybe they woke up later to the fact because the situation in Sussex back then was not quite as extreme? Slavery stopped a lot earlier in Sussex, and I do not remember reports of Klan lynchings in Sussex, or of people having to sit in the back of the bus, or not being allowed to vote due to their race even though they were citizens.
So, yes, there are great differences between Georgia and Sussex. (And I agree with languagehat on the other point, regarding the N-word.)
languagehat said,
July 13, 2017 @ 10:27 am
Slavery stopped a lot earlier in Sussex, and I do not remember reports of Klan lynchings in Sussex, or of people having to sit in the back of the bus, or not being allowed to vote due to their race even though they were citizens.
Sure, but you don't actually have to be personally exposed to a bad thing to realize it's a bad thing.
BZ said,
July 13, 2017 @ 10:59 am
Re: "Ten little nigger boys went out to dine\\One choked his little self, and then there were nine",
Wow, I heard a Russian translation of this growing up in Russia in the 80s, except it was a modified seventh verse repeated ten times (they went swimming in the sea, had fun in the water, one of them died, they bought him a coffin, n = n – 1). Never realized where it came from. Actually wouldn't be surprised if that Russian version was still circulating.
Rodger C said,
July 13, 2017 @ 11:05 am
Scattered observations:
West Virginia, b. 1948. I used the word "nr" (it pains me to type it) unself-consciously, like everyone around me, till the early 60s.
My father, b. 1920 and 100% Caucasian afaik, was called "Jap" all his life because of the way his eyes looked when he smiled as a baby.
My campus has a community-adopted dog we call Blackie, or sometimes just Black Dog.
tsts said,
July 13, 2017 @ 11:35 am
Languagehat: "Sure, but you don't actually have to be personally exposed to a bad thing to realize it's a bad thing."
Of course not. But it helps.
Now, I do believe that an even moderately educated person in Western Europe in the 1960s would have been quite aware of the civil rights movement in the US and the issue of racism. They would have primarily associated racism with the treatment of black people in the US, plus South Africa. Not because racism did not exist in their countries, but because it was not as extreme — at least in terms of the legal and political aspects, as opposed to casual day-to-day prejudice, and because there were relatively fewer black people in those countries. Britain had more black people than other countries, with the first wave of immigrants from the Caribbean in the 1950s, but even there you probably had only about 1% black population in the 1960s.
languagehat said,
July 13, 2017 @ 11:49 am
Of course not. But it helps.
Well, to some extent, depending on the person. Lots of people just dig in.
Your points on Western Europe are well taken, and I'm not shaking a puritan finger at people of the past who did not behave in ways that those of us with progressive ideas now expect all good people to behave. The past is a foreign country, etc. But I am put off when people of today behave as if it were still the 1950s, or excuse others for doing so.
languagehat said,
July 13, 2017 @ 12:24 pm
I mean, on another forum I'm arguing with people who are defending the violent misogyny of gamer culture a couple of decades ago (and denying that it could possibly have led to the much more widespread violent misogyny of today's culture) by saying (in essence) that teenagers back then couldn't have been expected to realize misogyny was a bad thing. Which makes me roll my eyes.
RP said,
July 13, 2017 @ 12:37 pm
@Bob Ladd,
In my state primary in 1980s Leicestershire, it was a "fish", which is a little odd, because fish have no toes. But you perhaps can't expect a rhyme that starts with the phrase "eeny meeny miney moe" to make a lot of sense.
Philip Taylor said,
July 13, 2017 @ 2:35 pm
Languagehat wrote : "Does it really, in 2017, have to be explained yet again that the word is utterly different when used by black people? Do you not get the concept of in-group vs. out-group?". I respectfully disagree. The word is utterly different when it is used by any person, of any colour, with the implied or overt suggestion that the person (or persons) to whom the n-word is being applied are in any way inferior or are the legitimate target of hatred, discrimination or abuse. When, on the other hand, it is used by a person of any colour with neutral semantics (e.g., as a part of a hackneyed phrase such as "nigger in the woodpile", or as it was used by my late grandfather when referring to his coloured nurse) or positive semantics (e.g., when used by one African-American to address another), then it is different again. Just as criticism of Israel does not imply any anti-semitic beliefs, the use of "nigger" does not, of itself, imply racial prejudice against black people, though there can be no disagreement that its use today can (and often does) imply negrophobia or worse.
TONY THORNE said,
July 13, 2017 @ 2:59 pm
I'm not intending to be condescending, but some of the comments, while totally sincere, illustrate the point I was trying to make, that the acceptability of terms aren't just a matter of opinion and anecdote, or even intention but must be tested in real life, against the reactions of some of the many 'speech communities' who make up a superdiverse society (forgive jargon).
Also for those who read French, I was reminded of the fact that it's not just Brits – or Americans – who deliberately or not offend with such language. The perpetrator this time is actually a friend of mine:
http://next.liberation.fr/mode/2015/01/30/le-fondateur-d-apc-fait-scandale-avec-l-emploi-du-mot-nigga_1191335
languagehat said,
July 13, 2017 @ 3:13 pm
When, on the other hand, it is used by a person of any colour with neutral semantics (e.g., as a part of a hackneyed phrase such as "nigger in the woodpile", or as it was used by my late grandfather when referring to his coloured nurse) or positive semantics (e.g., when used by one African-American to address another), then it is different again. Just as criticism of Israel does not imply any anti-semitic beliefs, the use of "nigger" does not, of itself, imply racial prejudice against black people
I respectfully suggest you try your theory out on some actual black people and see what they think of it. I'd also be curious as to what your grandfather's coloured nurse thought of his use of the term, but I imagine there's no way to find out at this late date.
Philip Taylor said,
July 13, 2017 @ 3:18 pm
If you read back, Languagehat, you will see that I have discussed my late grandfather's use of the term with a black West Indian lady who was neither offended by my use of the word nor by the fact that my grandfather used it when paying the nurse in question an indirect compliment.
languagehat said,
July 13, 2017 @ 3:32 pm
Yes, I read that. I respectfully suggest that you don't actually know what the West Indian lady thought, since she was hardly likely to tell you that she thought your grandfather was being racist. White people are often far more comforted than they should in reason be when black people reassure them that no, they're not racist, of course not, everything's fine. (Similarly, many men are comforted when their wives assure them that those awful feminists are exaggerating everything.)
Philip Taylor said,
July 13, 2017 @ 3:38 pm
I respectfully suggest (and this is my last contribution, on this aspect of the discussion at least) that as I was the one who was speaking to the West Indian lady in question, I am far better placed than you to judge whether or not she was telling the truth when she said that as far as she was concerned, neither my use of the n-word in conversation, nor my late grandfather's use of the n-word as his everyday adjective for describing a black person, were either offensive or racist.
languagehat said,
July 13, 2017 @ 3:44 pm
Well, believe what you need to believe. What I believe is that the use of that word by a white person to or about a black person is always racist, and always has been, but of course that's uncomfortable to acknowledge if you use it yourself or have a beloved family member who did.
J.W. Brewer said,
July 13, 2017 @ 4:35 pm
Geoff Pullum's main point, I take it, was that a word that has become quite taboo in most contexts may remain less taboo as embedded in particular fixed phrases, at least during some transitional period where the overall taboo is strengthening. It seems hard to argue with that as a general proposition, subject to dispute about the empirical facts of a particular case at a particular place and time. Obviously there may be some people even before that transitional period who find the taboo word just as objectionable when embedded in those fixed phrases, and if and when there are enough such people the taboo will spread until the transitional period ends. But I think the possible lag of the taboo in reaching fixed-phrase uses should be understood as a very different sociolinguistic phenomenon from the maybe-it's-still-okay-in-ingroup-usage phenomenon.
There is I think no serious dispute that the central taboo on the word-as-such got stronger earlier in "respectable" AmEng than in "respectable" BrEng (although I personally am loathe to draw conclusions from that as to which group of Anglophones was more morally elevated than the other), from which it should be highly unsurprising that fixed-phrase uses would endure longer in BrEng among people who had already been persuaded (later than they might have been persuaded in the US) that the "core" use was taboo. Any such transition period for the "in the woodpile" fixed phrase was already over in my native variety of AmEng by my own adolescence in the late '70's, at least according to my own memories, in which a) I never heard a "respectable" (or frankly any) adult say it aloud; and b) I only heard white peers occasionally say it in contexts where they would have been equally willing to say e.g. "fuck" (i.e. out of earshot of teachers etc) — it's hard for me to say all these decades later whether their usage reflected actual mild racism versus the more general adolescent pleasure in Saying Bad Words. Whether and when the transitional period ended for the "in the woodpile" fixed phrase in BrEng seems to me an empirical question that I have no particular insight into, other than: a) I would expect it to be some decades later than in AmEng; and b) the reaction to this particular incident is certainly some evidence that it may be imprudent to act on the assumption that the transition period is still underway.
Possibly related BrEng example: Elvis Costello's 1979 song "Oliver's Army" includes the fixed phrase "white nigger" in the lyrics, conveniently rhyming with "itchy trigger." It was a much more massive hit in the UK than the US although it certainly got some commercial airplay in the US in, as best as I can recall, unexpurgated form. There was apparently (the internet tells me) a controversy in 2013 when BBC Radio Six played an expurgated version of it, with at least some substantial body of respectable opinion objecting to the bowdlerization. Although I'm not sure that the all of the defenders would have felt the same way about a newly-written and recorded song using the same phrase?
Bfwebster said,
July 13, 2017 @ 4:57 pm
I'm 64. After moving about as a child (Dad was in the Navy), we settled in east San Diego County when I was 8, an area that was predominantly European descent with some Latin American and very few blacks (in our high school of 2600, we probably had half a dozen at most).
In elementary school and probably even Jr high, the N-word would show up in jokes, but usually with the same transgressive laughter used for 'dirty' jokes. I know I never heard either of my parents (both born in 1924) use the word, and I would have caught holy hell from my mother (and a lesser but still stern rebuke from my father) if I had ever used it in front of them. Personally, I'm pretty sure I stopped using the word even in jokes while in elementary school, largely following my parents' example.
RP said,
July 13, 2017 @ 5:06 pm
Regarding the "transition period" for the woodpile idiom, one can contrast the 1965 and 1996 editions of Fowler's Modern English Usage (Oxford University Press). The 1965 edition says of "nigger" that the term is now considered offensive but that it survives in a few set-phrases (implying, I think, that it was considered acceptable in those phrases).
By contrast, the 1996 edition says that those "traditional phrases" "have all been laid aside except in historical contexts or when used with an obvious implication of ethnic abuse".
And that was more than 20 years ago.
J.W. Brewer said,
July 13, 2017 @ 5:50 pm
Oddly enough in light of RP's comment, Jesse Sheidlower's mostly-positive review of the 1996 "Fowler" (i.e. the one done by Burchfield) specifically complains that its handling of the woodpile idiom "does not speak well of his sensitivity to this most notorious word." https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/12/elegant-variations-and-all-that/376744/.
Although I'm skeptical of the reliability of Fowler-branded usage books as a source of empirical data on actual usage, the "laid aside" by 1996 point is broadly consistent with RP's earlier point about the woodpile idiom having disappeared from parliamentary discourse sometime during the 1980's.
RP said,
July 13, 2017 @ 6:05 pm
I did not realise it, but the woodpile idiom is mentioned twice by Burchfield, once in the entry for "nigger" (where he says it has been "laid aside" except in historical contexts and offensive usage) and once in the entry for "black", where Sheidlower spotted it – where Burchfield says only that the "long-established" usage of the said idiom has sharply declined during the 20th century. There is no cross-reference between the two entries.
Stephan Hurtubise said,
July 13, 2017 @ 8:12 pm
I have no idea why I'm wading into such a controversial topic; I must be a masochist! But . . .
languagehat said, in response to Philip Taylor: "I respectfully suggest you try your theory out on some actual black people and see what they think of it. I'd also be curious as to what your grandfather's coloured nurse thought of his use of the term, but I imagine there's no way to find out at this late date."
For whatever it's worth (though, I'm not sure it's worth much), I know — and know of — at least some black people who are quite comfortable with this line of reasoning. Ideally, of course, it would go without saying they don't constitute some monolithic entity. (And even if they did, I'm not clear on what bearing how many people believing something, or how strongly they believe it, would have on the idea. But, I'm open to having my mind changed about this.)
I hope this doesn't come across as insensitive, as though I'm disregarding the very real and important effect a word like this can have on people. It would be inconsiderate to dismiss its history and power. But, I also don't think it's fair to assume that all black people think alike, or that some of their opinions are worth more than others, because they've somehow 'gotten things right' (while the rest are, I suppose, mistaken on some level).
J.W. Brewer said,
July 13, 2017 @ 9:05 pm
I was interested to see from skimming that link (in the original post) containing 100+ uses of the woodpile idiom in the UK Parliament that the champion user (seven separate instances ranging from 1960 to 1972) appears to be "Miss Irene Ward," latterly (sez wikipedia) Baroness Ward of North Tyneside. As far as it being a generational marker, she was born in 1895, so she was not one of the younger members at the time of the speeches in question. It is perhaps noteworthy that the only 21st century uses on the floor of Parliament occurred in the House of Lords rather than the House of Commons and the most recent one (in 2008, by the septuagenerian-at-the-time Lord Dixon-Smith), apparently led to a subsequent controversy and public apology.
In our American Parliament-analogue, I was able to dig up a speech by Congresswoman Slaughter (D-N.Y.) from 1997 in which she used the minced variant "a real snake in the woodpile" but no hits in that database for the more "traditional" phrasing. However, I don't know how far back that particular database goes beyond the 1990's. Looking for older volumes of the Congressional Record via the google books corpus (which may not be complete) I saw no hits for the "traditional" phrasing more recent than 1945 – and that hit was not from the mouth of an actual elected official speaking on the floor, but from the text of a radio address given by a bank president from Wyoming, which Senator Murray of Montana asked to have reprinted in the appendix for the edification of his colleagues and the general public. Earlier in the 1940's, Senator Vandenberg of Michigan appears to have used the euphemistic variant "Ethiopian in the woodpile" during a colloquy with Senator McKellar of Tennessee.
languagehat said,
July 14, 2017 @ 7:29 am
I know — and know of — at least some black people who are quite comfortable with this line of reasoning.
And you know this how? It continues to amaze me how many white people are contented and relieved to believe whatever reassuring things black people say to them about racism, despite the obvious incentive to keep bad feelings to oneself in this context.
But, I also don't think it's fair to assume that all black people think alike
On this particular subject, I'm pretty sure there's more unanimity than on most others. Similarly, I'm pretty sure there are very few Jews who are comfortable with gentiles using words like "kike." Again, though, believe what you need to believe.
Matt said,
July 14, 2017 @ 9:10 am
With regards to the "eenie meenie" rhyme, as late as the early 90s I grew up in a very Anglo semi-rural area of Australia (though less than an hour from Melbourne), and we used the original version in the school yard.
But to me, it was as much a made-up word as the entire first sentence of that rhyme. It wasn't that I mistakenly thought the term was acceptable, but that I never heard it in any other context outside that rhyme, so it was literally meaningless to me. It wasn't until several years later when I learned a bit more of history and discovered its meaning and racist connotations.
Needless to say I haven't used it since.
I have no idea why that particular version lasted so long in our town. We mustn't have ever used it around my parents, because they would have been horrified and corrected us very quickly if they heard. I imagine most parents in the area would have been the same…
My wife, same age/different Australian city, had the "tigger" version in her childhood.
Stephan Hurtubise said,
July 14, 2017 @ 2:34 pm
languagehat said: And you know this how? It continues to amaze me how many white people are contented and relieved to believe whatever reassuring things black people say to them about racism, despite the obvious incentive to keep bad feelings to oneself in this context.
I'm not really sure how to respond to this. I don't know how to convince you my friend wasn't lying to me, nor that what he said to me in our most recent conversation wasn't meant to be reassuring. Would you like me to put you in touch with him? I know that offer seems a bit strange, but in all earnestness, I'm sure he wouldn't mind; it's a topic he's pretty passionate about.
Honestly, I was just trying to demonstrate a diversity of opinion, not to convince you of any point in particular. If you're curious, I might recommend having a look at the most recent conversation between Dr. Glenn Loury and Dr. John McWhorter, which touches on another recent controversy surrounding the word in question:
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/46391.
languagehat said: On this particular subject, I'm pretty sure there's more unanimity than on most others. Similarly, I'm pretty sure there are very few Jews who are comfortable with gentiles using words like "kike." Again, though, believe what you need to believe.
I suspect you're right. And with respect, I feel you might be ascribing to me beliefs I don't actually hold. My point was simply that opinions on this topic are at least somewhat varied, and that it's a strange enterprise anyway to start counting people and using the resulting number as evidence either for or against a linguist point (unless that enterprise is, specifically, to provide statistics on people's views towards language use).
ardj said,
July 15, 2017 @ 6:02 am
Are there really no non-white people, linguisticians or just with an interest in language, who feel able to contribute to this discussion ? And what does that say about reserving their feelings ?
ardj said,
July 15, 2017 @ 6:05 am
or more generally (since "white" is scarcely a correct, in any sense, description) people challenged by linguistic slurs
Stephen said,
July 15, 2017 @ 7:23 am
A couple of comments on some very muddled thinking.
1. The year is irrelevant. If you are wrong, then you were wrong last year and will be wrong next year.
2. The point about whether the word is racist when used by black rap artists was made in response to Mark P saying "Also, I find it hard to accept that someone who is 60 doesn't know that the word nigger is racist." So an absolute statement that the word is inherently racist.
Here it is being said that to decide if the word is racist one must look at the context. Not the context of the surrounding words, or the context of the intent, but the context of the colour of the skin of the person who says it.
Isn't that rather a racist viewpoint?
3. On in-group vs. out-group, separating people out as 'One of us' or 'One of them' is discriminatory and, when based on skin colour, rather racist.
4. What is a black person?
My brother-in-law's father can from the West Indies, was dark skinned and clearly was what is called black.
My brother-in-law's had a white mother and has much paler skin. Is he black? Is he allowed to use this word?
He has married a white woman and had two children who are paler still. Are they black? Are they allowed to use this word?
If they marry white people and have children, will they be black? Will they be allowed to use this word?
a George said,
July 16, 2017 @ 12:59 pm
languagehat, who appears to promote the thought of censorship, which he is obviously perfectly entitled to, stated "I respectfully suggest you try your theory out on some actual black people and see what they think of it." Personally I have no doubt that those "actual black" guineapigs would not like expressions that in former times were intentionally derogatory. But in my view, that does not count. We are not in those former times. I am sure that we can find from one individual to millions of individuals who take a dim view of certain expressions, but that does not prima facie give them a right to have their use prohibited. Where would we put the minimum size of a group that would be given such privileges? On a different thread related to this one I have described that almost all children are at one time or another called names, but I cannot fathom the thought that all such "names" should be banned from language. Yet, each individual child suffers immensely while the naming takes place, and some will carry scars into their adulthood. I imagine that some of those affected to a sufficient degree will require psychiatric treatment to be able to function. Name-calling is such a strong element in human behavior, and it is essentially linked to the concept of "them and us". Those that stand out visually or acoustically are and have always been in the risk of being considered "them" by a surrounding majority. But neither the majority nor any minority shall have the right to request the banning of certain words.
Alternatively, imagine that a huge group of words were indeed banned from public use. The concepts behind the words would not disappear, and people would merely learn to use a second vocabulary when expressing themselves publicly. Examples abound — the reports many of us have read of the internet in the Peoples' Republic of China indicate that secondary meanings are on the up. It is the context that gives the meaning.
And, even without the offending terms being expressed literally, innuendo, perhaps shrouded in terms that few will understand, will always exist. For instance, languagehat himself demonstrates this in the most elegant fashion, because he (on a different thread) planted the idea that I am a flea-infested dog (isn't that calling someone a name?) How? Well, using the non-whore connotation of "bitch" and knowing that I had stated openly that I did not mind or care being called a "son-of-a-bitch" taken literally, he tried to provoke Prof. Pullum to state whether he would associate with my opinion in this matter of permitted vocabulary. I do not think that you can provide a minority with protection against this approach to derogation. "Them and us!"
Robert Coren said,
July 19, 2017 @ 10:57 am
I'm 71, and thus first heard the "eenie meenie" rhyme in the early 1950s (I grew up in New York City). The version I learned used "tiger" (not "tigger"), and I never knew about the "nigger" variant until well into adulthood.
I also had never heard the "nigger in the woodpile" expression when I saw a W. C. Fields movie in which, on encountering an unexpected difficulty, he muttered "There's an Ethiopian in the fuel supply". (I don't remember which movie, and I think he may have used this expression in more than one film.) I only got the reference later on, but clearly by that time the movie industry was avoiding "nigger".
The word appears in two different songs in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado. Modern productions, of course, use substitutes. There's a subtle maneuver in the movie Topsy Turvy to get around having to either use it, thereby offending contemporary audiences, or avoiding it, thereby committing a serious anachronism.
SRP said,
July 19, 2017 @ 11:42 am
I'm 61, when I was a child (in the Midlands of England) the “nigger” version of the “eenie-meenie” rhyme was commonplace in my (white, working-class) school. I don't recall any adult complaining about the use of such an offensive term. I also remember that the verb “to wog” meant “to steal”, it was years before I realised its use had a racial connotation.
Robert Coren said,
July 20, 2017 @ 9:10 am
I am now reminded of a bit from Fawlty Towers which could be viewed as offensive because of the words it uses, but nonetheless struck me as very funny, partly because of a double subversion of expectations. The Major (an old-school dodderer with decidedly out-of-fashion socio-political views) is telling Basil about a cricket match to which he took a woman years ago, and she referred to the Indian players as "niggers". "Oh, no! I said, you mustn't call them that. [pause] The niggers are the West Indians; these are wogs."
a George said,
July 20, 2017 @ 11:13 am
I think that it is a very, very nice personal gesture to refrain from using words that are claimed to be more or less offensive to groups of people (or individuals) and their more or less self-appointed Worriers, but it is futile to the extreme. Words will out! It would be folly to legislate about words, as recently demonstrated in the Peoples' Republic of China where Milne's character Winnie the Pooh (in Disney's version) has gone viral due to a ban. To quote the free access part of the Telegraph 18 July 2017 (found on the web): "The intention is, it seems, to put a stop to the disrespect before autumn’s Communist party conference. But inevitably the upshot of the ban has been to ensure that the joke has gone global;….." This is an example of what I have called "the majority deciding what is permitted" (July 16, 2017 @ 12:59 pm). It does not work.
Recurrent discussions on LanguageLog have concerned "this language has no term for …..". The conclusion has inevitably been that even though a simple term may not exist it does not mean that one cannot deal with the underlying phenomenon in that particular language. If the wishes of the Worriers and certain minorities were fulfilled, we would have a situation where "this language _no longer_ has a term for ……". Surely it must be the presumed underlying disdain and disrepect that is hurtful, not the term itself — that would only be a question of encoding.
However, I do not think we can eradicate from human society the fundamentally human classification of "them and us". There will always be outsiders who would much rather be unclassified, although in some circles there would be a desire to "belong". Even a seasoned Worrier like languagehat realises ("Do you not get the concept of in-group vs. out-group?") that there are these two classifications, even though he does not draw the same consequence as I do, because he believes what he must believe. He uses the classification to distinguish betweeen those who are permitted to use a certain expression and those who are not permitted to. But it is much more fundamental than that.
I am with Philip Taylor (July 13, 2017 @ 2:35 pm) and reserve my right to use any term in communication that I see fit. The context in which it is said will give the meaning that I (and Humpty-Dumpty) want to give it, and the receiver only has a say in the form of feedback. What if my mere presence with my red head were to turn the receiver into a raging bull, and the feedback to my presence is a blow on the head? Is that acceptable, just because the receiver cannot tolerate the sight of red hair? Anyway, the feedback would tell me, the sender, how to react, once the utterance has been tried in practice. It does not hurt to think before uttering! I think what I am saying is that any utterance is at the speaker's own risk and that society cannot really remove that without severely curtailing simple expression. Circumscription will be the call of the day, as we can see in certain societies already.