Odd. I was under the apparently mistaken assumption that the goal of verbal speech is to effectively communicate ideas to your listener.
The thing is, it’s hard to know with surety what words your auditor is familiar with. My mother graduated from a rural Mississippi high school in '57 and had no college, but she had a nice vocabulary and would throw around words like nfantilize. And in the specific context that I last heard her use that word, no other word would really have done.
Well, I wouldn’t think you were racist. Because context matters. Of course you know that, though. I’d probably think, depending on the audience, “I wonder why he would use that word. It’s mighty distracting.” But I wouldn’t think “racist” because that wouldn’t make sense (unless it was clear that you were a self-hating negro.)
But when I hear a black person use “nigga”, I also have a reflexive feeling. It’s different than what “niggardly” conjures up, but it’s there. I hardly think I’m the only one who has reflexive feelings to certain words.
I certainly agree with the spirit of what you’re saying and as a high school debate coach, I spend a lot of time discussing with my kids the skill of adjusting your language level to that of the listener without unintentionally insulting somebody. I mean, hell, I get offended when folks talk reaaaal slow and in small words to me, because they assume I’m a ditz. 
That said, I suppose what I took away from the post I was responding to was a feeling that the poster was taking pride in the fact that they often use words their listeners can’t understand. You shouldn’t be proud that you can’t effectively communicate your ideas. Intelligence isn’t just having a diverse vocabulary, intelligence is knowing when to appropriately exercise that vocabulary.
I’ve never had occasion to use it, and probably wouldn’t anyway because so few people know what it means…this is as much about not wanting people to feel stupid as it is to avoid argument with those who might not know it doesn’t mean what they assume. This is different from saying it **shouldn’t **be used, though, so I didn’t vote.
So, if there’d been a poll option that said “I know what it means, but wouldn’t use b/c I’d rather avoid misunderstandings” I might have voted.
But Antinor was admitting to deliberately using obscure words just to confuse people. That’s different than what you’re describing.
I have a big vocabulary, in that I know the meaning of many obscure words (paid off big on my GREs!) But knowing many words does not mean one should use them all whenever, wherever. Personally, “infantilize” doesn’t seem like such a million dollar word to me. But if I’m walking down the street with someone and notice a lovely tulip poplar, I’m not going to say, “Look at the magnificent Liriodendron tulipirifa!” Because most people will not know what the hell I’m saying, and as an intelligent person, I should know this.
I know word-play is fun. I like words too. But I like communicately effectively better and not making people feel stupid or bad.
British. I don’t use the word and I may be offended by its use, even though I am aware of what it means and that it’s a different etymology.
It’s not a commonly used word, and given the contoversy now, I’d find it likely that the speaker is trying to prove some point or test me.
None of the above for me. I’m an American and I don’t use the word. But I’m not saying you shouldn’t use the word. It’s just an archaic word that I wouldn’t use regardless of any pseudo-racial context. I don’t use the word parsimonious either. I’d just say somebody was cheap or stingy.
And knowing that words are more than the letters and definitions.
If we think about how often we hear people confuse “epithet” and “epitaph,” “effect” and “affect,” “averse” and “adverse,” “prostate” and “prostrate,” “then” and “than,” “torturous” and “tortuous” and all of the other word pairs in English that are just close enough to get linked together in our heads, to fish around for which one we mean to type or say or which one we were likely to have just heard, then it makes perfect sense to say, “Hey, when you say ‘niggard,’ I think ‘nigger.’”
So, to me, when people say that they are going to use a word that is pretty much bound to make a not-small subset of their listeners think of one of the most offensive words in the English language, it makes me wonder what they are thinking. If someone had never made the connection because they don’t categorize words that way, well, that’s super. But once you learn, “If I say that word, some number in my audience will be put in mind of this other word that is incredibly offensive,” then it stops making sense to say it. If I heard “niggardly” I hear two words: “niggardly” and “nigger.” They arrive simultaneously
Maybe I’ve spent too much time around poets, but sound is meaning. That’s why a lot of jokes and puns work, because we make the connection between words based solely on their sounds, and we assign meaning even when there was none to start with, you slithy tove, you.
Who has ruled that? Surely you don’t mean the handful of people who made a hoopla about it almost a decade ago?
This is why nobody goes by the nickname “Dick” any more.
But who here has actually been told they have to censor themselves wrt to “niggardly”? It’s not as though there are PSAs put out about the evils of “niggardly”. It’s not as though anyone except message board geeks even really care about it. It’s not a hot topic; there are no media campaigns about it. Who in the world is using it that frequently under natural circumstances that they would even encounter someone who would chatise them about it? I bet not one person who has used the word in a normal conversation has taken flak for it. In the thread that Hari Seldom posted to, did he get pitted for his use of “niggardly”? Did anyone even see fit to comment about it?
Frankly, what we are really talking about are some people choosing to self-censor (or maybe not even self-censor…they just find no use for it) for whatever reason they have, and other people getting bent out of shape by the idea that they can be judged by their word choice, no matter how arcane it is. And what I’m saying is word choice is no holy grail. Your speech can be judged by any number of things, and that’s completely normal.
Expansive for the sake of expansiveness only has value to the person who prides themselves on remembering a bunch of exotic and not-so-exotic words. But if no one understands you the way you want to be understood when you employ this expansive vocabulary, it’s just wasted noise.
I know this is hard for a lot of people to grasp (and I’m not saying this condescendingly). I too pride myself on having a generous vocabulary too. But I try never to forget what speech is really about. It’s function is to convey information. Artistic flourishes are nice, but itheir value are highly subject to the law of diminishing returns when it comes to straightforward communication.
Its all about perception. You’re essentially asking me to explain why “niggling” isn’t controversial. I don’t know. Why isn’t “kited”? Why isn’t “country”?
But if you don’t think “niggardly” is loaded, in spite of the fact that there have endless discussions about it in addition to overhyped media circuses, then I’m really not going to expend the energy in explaining it to you.
As I was listening to a radio story about the tragic swimming death in the Middle East this past year, I had occasion to reflect on the idea that if I were the head of a national athletic association, and my name were Richard Pound, I’d choose a different nickname. (And I was really careful how I googled that, too.)
Nobody is saying that folks should be prevented from saying “niggardly”; indeed, many of us have been saying that the poll excludes the middle. What I’m saying, and what several other folks are saying, is that:
-“Niggardly” is most often used now by folks trying to stir up trouble. (DrDeth, the fact that it’s being used as such because of the recent controversy is irrelevant: what’s relevant is that that’s how it’s primarily used these days.)
-A great deal of the audience for general speech will find the word distracting at best.
-If you’re interested in communicating a message, unless thinking about racial epithets is part of your message, the word may be less-than-optimal, unless you have a very particular audience.
Nowhere in there is censorship involved. When someone uses the word correctly and without racebaiting (“snigger”, Chefguy, how droll!), as in the auto review I mentioned earlier, I don’t have any problem with it. But that’s just not how it tends to be used these days.
I vaguely know the word. I’ve seen it in old books. I think of it as something used long ago. Out of style today.
equating niggardly with nigger doesn’t make sense.
That’s like refusing to say Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name. I often hear it pronounced like the N word too.
Kited? When did some paper tied to a string become controversial?
Yes, I do. About two years ago in a conversation about controlling the costs on a firm-fixed price contract. Said it because it fit perfectly the mood I wanted to capture: expending resources carefully, parsimoniously. Stingy had a pejorative connotation I didn’t want; parsimonious had a more neutral connotation of simply reducing expenditures; I wanted a word that captured the “grab each penny hard enough to see Lincoln wince” idea.
Of course, I also remember when I last said “difilade.”
No, what I said was “I use a lot of words in casual conversation that many people dont understand. If it’s the right word, I’ll use it.”. By which I meant that a lot of words I tend to use don’t seem to be understood by a lot of people. Perfectly good words that I don’t even think twice about. Like when I described why that may be, I mentioned that I read a lot as a kid. My first instinct is to say ‘I was a voracious reader.’. I’ve found a lot of people aren’t sure what that means.
I did later mention, in response to Nzinga, Seated that it amuses me to occasionally come up with a word that my English major friends don’t know, but that hardly reflects a general attitude of trying to confuse people.
If I ever meet you, please do say things like ‘that magnificent Liriodendron tulipirifa’, I love learning new things.
No, it’s not like that, because his name is unlikely to distract the audience. Words don’t exist in a vacuum: they only exist in a cultural context. Trying to understand their subtleties and fullness of meaning without understanding the culture of both audience and speaker is futile. Trying to understand human language as though it were a computer language, in which rationality were the only concern, is to completely misunderstand how human language works.
All right. Maybe I should do a poll on how many people avoid ever saying the phrase “my country…” because it includes syllables that sound identical to “my cunt.”
Frankly, it sounds even more like it than Mike Hunt sounds like it.
Do we avoid that one? I’ve even heard people sing it!
Actually they do, just last month we interviewed Dick Lee and put his name and face on the cover of a magazine.