In another thread it was alleged that the word “niggardly” is too closely related to nigger to ever be used in polite conversation anymore.
And further, that anyone that does use it is deliberately race baiting.
Personally, I find the idea stupid, and would actually go a little further.
To suggest that a word, and its derivatives, that is not related to “nigger” become unusable due to an American racial slur is insulting to those of us that actually speak English (as opposed to American)
So have you ever used “niggardly” in a conversation? Would you? And is it too close to Nigger to be polite now"?
I have used the word niggardly in conversations. But those conversations took place a long time ago, when I routinely conversed with people who had decent vocabularies and before PC reared its ugly face in the land. I wouldn’t use it now simply because of the seemingly ever increasing number of knee-jerk jerks; it isn’t worth my time to defend the use of a perfectly good word. More’s the pity.
I’m niggardly in my use of niggardly. But when I DO use it, I emphasize the second syllable (ni-GAR-dly). This is probably incorrect, but it does help the other person hear “synonym for stingy” over “racial slur that can’t even be discussed.”
I like to use terms like this to teach the Attackkids to think before they react. “I was gayly gathering faggots when I ran into that niggardly friend of mine” should get a good reaction.
If you (like I had repeatedly stated) accept that the only common usage of “Niggardly” is in comparison to “Nigger,” or in reference to middle-English literature, then it is naive to think that people won’t compare your usage of it to Nigger.
Try to think that, perhaps, people are more linguistically astute then you give them credit for. It isn’t smarter to take a strict prescriptive stance on the usage of “Niggardly” instead of a common descriptive stance on the word.
Maybe I am in the minority but my immediate response was no, of course I don’t use it casually in conversation. It is a somewhat obscure word and it sounds like a racial slur. I haven’t ever had a problem conveying my meaning without this word. I am a born smart-arse, but I try to curb my natural impulses. If I think my audience understands the word and its connotations (or lack thereof) I would us it.
Really Stoid? You don’t care if the people you are talking to don’t understand you?
Yeah, you set up this poll poorly, so I didn’t vote. I know it; I don’t use it; I think a person using it needs to be aware of the probable effects of its use. If you’re okay with people being totally distracted from your message by the word’s newfound tangential associations, and if you’re okay with them spending all their time wondering why you used the word, then cool, go ahead and use it. However, if you’re interested in communicating a specific message, this word is a tragic casualty of phonemes; you’re probably better off using a different word.
Last time this debate came up, I tried an experiment. I googled “niggardly,” and checked how far I had to go before I came across a use of the word that was neither in a news column covering the DC incident, nor on a racist website baiting people with a “Hee hee, look how smart and edumacated I am, watch those liberals and colored people get their panties all twisted!”
It was on the fifth page of results that I finally came across an unloaded, straight-up use of the word. A car review mentioned the car’s niggardly interior features. And immediately after the sentence was a parenthetical comment explaining that the word had no racial connotations.
When a word is used more than 98% of the time to discuss racial epithets, I think there’s a good case that popular usage has modified its meaning. If words were objective facts about the universe, popular understanding of their meaning would be immaterial to that meaning. But words derive 100% of their meaning from how human beings use them. And niggardly is overwhelmingly used today to discuss race.
[hijack]I agree, but conversely, if a racial epithet is itself used 98% of the time in a discussion of racial epithets rather than in actual slurs, it’s time to reconsider if it’s really a racial epithet. See, for instance, “spade”. I’ve never ever seen it used as an actual racial epithet, only in the discussion over whether a 2500-year-old saying is racist or not. I think it’s safe to say that you can use that phrase without people jumping to conclusions, even if a lot of people will uncomfortable associate it with a racial epithet, because that epithet isn’t even used anymore.
I learned the word when I was in middle school. But I don’t use it in conversations for the same reason I don’t use the word “dullard” or “loquacious” when I could just as easily say “stupid person” or “blabbermouth”.
Why is “niggardly” such a coveted word? Of all adjectives out there, this one actually has a generous supply of commonly-used synonyms: stingy, measly, mean, tight, miserly, parsimonious, and cheap. So if someone skips over these words in favor of a much less accessible one, I’m going to get them the side-eye. It smacks of trying too hard.
If you exclude discussions of Shakespeare and of the controversy that we talked about in that thread, I don’t think I’ve ever used it in casual conversation. It does sound like a racial slur and it’s kind of archaic. I don’t think it’s stupid to avoid the word for those reasons. Insisting that the word is somehow racist after you’ve been informed of its meaning, on the other hand, is stupid. There’s nothing impolite about saying niggard. People could use it as a substitute racial slur, but a lot of words can be used that way if the speaker is determined enough.
I know the word and have used it and will probably use it again in the right situation, though those situations are infrequent. However, as in the past, I will only use it in the company of people that I know aren’t so ignorant to think that I’m using a racial slur.