What, if any, is the difference between the words “nigger” and “nigga”? Definition? Connotation? Spoken (written) by a Black? A white? The infusion of hip-hop words into the everyday vernacular leaves me confused and often offended.
southern accent . means the same. bein southern might add a bit more bite to it in certain situations. My high school principal had to deal with the first year of integration, he used the word ‘nigruh’ for months. Can’t think of a wise crack that would be acceptable. To ME I mean. Sorry to let you down. The wise ass lobe of my brain is being niggardly I guess.
“…”-Marx
Niggardly. Another perfectly fine word we can’t use. I saw a a black person (and several others in the proximity) get incredibly offended when someone used it. A shame, really.
Especially since it is etymologically unrelated, coming from the middle English nigon from Scandinavian, related to niggle but not to the Spanish negro.
Anyone remember a year or two back when a politican on a national press conference used the word niggardly to the dismay of the resident moron press? Can’t recall who, where, or what the press conference was about. IIRC it made the frontpage of most newspapers, even the small college town newpaper and the univeristy paper in my school.
He was a local politician for the city of Washington, D.C. He ended up resigning over the flap it created. Sad but true.
Slowly, we’re going akilter. John makes the point that the two words are the same and differ only in its pronunciation. But most hip-hop references I’ve seen are not southern in origin, yet are spelled “nigga”. I get the impression that, in the black community “nigga” is less offensive than “nigger”. I’m trying to find out if there is any veracity to that statement.
Many years ago a scholarly writer named George Stimpson commented that the “r” sound requires the greatest flexibility of the mouth parts used to articulate words and so it is the sound most often dropped by slovenly speakers. Some of my (white) ancestors come from the South so I know it isn’t restricted to blacks. And I have heard people elide the “r” at the end of other words, or before a consonant, so it isn’t racism that prompts it, but simply careless speech.
Chief,neither is more or less offensive, it is the SAME word. Some people may pronounce it niggA on purpose at times.“poeticly”,“artistically” and I use those loosely,to 'fit in’or to be offensive. What a lot of people consider a ‘black’ accent is a varient of southern accents.Especially the inner urban accent,don’t get it confused with a dialect, listen to the sounds of the words not what words are used and how and where.
Dougie ,you watch it thar boy,yew don know whut yur tockin 'bout,sayin ah tock slobenly There is a real difference between an accent and slovenly or careless speech.
Odd but during the 40’s the Chicago Tribune spelled it “Neggar”
I “snigger” at political correctness gone berserk.
Anyway, I think “nigga” is used mainly by African-Americans. I don’t think a white would get away with using it.
Incidently, I’ve also heard the word “nigger” used to refer to someone who does all the work and gets none of the credit: e.g. “He’s the company nigger”.
I’ve seen black people on film sometimes call each other that. But white people can’t, of course. Insult heirachy or something?
Come on, you guys. Quicher whining. It ain’t like our language has suffered a great loss in the word “nigger”. Or niggardly, for that matter.
White, not black, people made the word dirty.
Contrary to popular (white) belief, most black people I know find the word offensive and never use it. Nor do they use words like “honky” or “peckerwood” or such, esp. in my presence. If you show respect, you get respect.
Peace,
mangeorge
It’s similar as you can complain and insult your mother or your kid, but get mad if a stranger said the exact same thing about your mother or your kid. That’s why blacks can use it but not whites.
Which brings up another point. Some hate black prefering African American but some hate African American prefering black. I had a friend Jean he hated the African American term. She said “I was born her in America and I an in no way African I am black.”
So goes to show you, you never know what upsets some people.
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- I think it was either Walter Williams or Thomas Sowell (who are black) that said he thought the term “African-American” was phony. He ponted out that most people who use it weren’t born in Africa, and have never set foot there. In addition, most African-born naturalized citizens refer to the country they were born in, not the continent. - MC
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I daresay that this is utterly refuted today. There are just some subdialects that tend to stress the “r” (rhotic) and those that tend to skip over it (non-rhotic). The Boston accent, for instance, is non-rhotic.
The key test is the word “murderer.” If you hear all three r’s, it’s rhotic. Many subdialects drop one or more of them.
It has nothing to do with laziness of slovenlyness (say what you will, I doubt JFK was either). People just tend to prounounce words they way they hear them.
As an aside toward the main topic, the word “nigra” – highly insulting and rarely used today – was originally the dictionary pronunciation of the word “negro.” Back in the 50s and 60s, southerners were no doubt bewildered at being castigated for using the term that Blacks wanted to be used.
In one of the other threads, someone–sorry, can’t recall who!–answered my own question about the phrase African-American, which is so often inaccurate (I have two white friends who are African-American!). He said it was invented by Jesse Jackson in the '80s, with no input from the black community, and that the press picked it up from “respect” for Jackson and fear of being un-P.C. Most blacks I know hate the term, especially as many are not of direct African ancestry.
I can recall my grandmother referring to “colored people,” my mother to “negroes,” and I of course to “blacks.” It seems to change from generation to generation–no doubt to keep us on our toes . . .
Good responses, all. Thanks for the enlightenment. I know other threads dealt with the “who called whom what” issue. Whites should use neither word. Blacks may use either, but “nigga” is more acceptable. This true?
I know this is a gross generalization (and I tend to avoid them if at all possible). I guess we should be referring this question to the majority, or popular opinion of the Black community.