Per this story I was all set to be outraged at the oppressive school administrator and ignorant, hypersensitive parent, but in thinking about it further…
Niggardly is, in and of itself, a perfectly good word that has no etymological link to “nigger” in use or concept, but I would never use it in front of a group of professionals, friends or children because of the fairly good chance that some person will misconstrue it. IMO use of the word niggardly in 2002, and in mixed company is just enough of a little “gotcha” to black people that it should be discouraged, though I realize opinions may differ.
I’m ready to defend good vocabulary skills to the death, but it seems (to me) that using it in front of a group of typical 4th graders is just asking for trouble from parents once the word is bucket brigaded back to them. I have a reasonable vocabulary and IMO “niggardly” is old fashioned enough at this point that it’s use in everyday conversation (esp. with a group of young kids) is a deliberate affectation and should be discouraged to prevent confusion. If you’re going to teach use of the word niggardly, wait until middle school or high school so kids can better place it in context.
I agree. I think that the word, itself, is perfectly acceptable, but that 4th graders just lack the maturity level to have it used. There’s just too much baggage involved to risk it.
As much as I hate to give in to the rising tide of American illiteracy, the word needs to be retired. It’s an archaic word that has plenty of synonyms that can convey the same concept–grudging, miserly, stingy–without raising the same legacy of The Other Word That Sounds Like Niggard.
I think the teacher was in the right. Teaching the word at any age is fine, as long as it is made clear that it bears no relationship whatever to that other N-word that nice people don’t use.
I think some lightening up is in order. What is next, masking out Nigeria from the African map? Or the Niger River? Maybe I should ask that my supermarket stop selling crackers because it reminds me of the phrase “Cracker Boy”. Or suppose a white person objects to “honky-tonk” music being taught in schools? How about we spend as much time trying to get along as we do trying to be offended?
Funny, we had the same brouhaha over the word here in DC a year or so ago. I’m pretty sure it was Mayor Anthony Williams who used it in a board meeting, and another Black city official took offense at it - even though Williams himself is Black.
Because they are pronounced NY-jeer-e-ah and NY-jer, respectively, and they are spelled with one G, not two. Both words are derived form the Latin word for “black.” Now, if Nigeria had been named Niggerland, then you might have a case.
i agree people need to not look for offense unwarranted, but at the same time, nice people should minimize possible offence if they can. “Niggard” is an archaic, unnecessary word, and it nees to be retired.
My goodness, if the kids never encounter words previously unknown to them, how will they expand their vocabularie? To retire the word, surely, would be indirerectly to allow racists to dictate language use. Very strange.
Uranus, penal; it’s a friggin minefiled out there. The Onion did a list of these (words making our sixth-graders giggle or some such), and my favorite was “titular archbishopric.”
Anyway, it may be archaic but it’s a perfectly good word and it can only be positive in adding to vocabularies.
Back on the OP, I would certainly think it’s an appropriate word to use, since one of the points of primary school education is to expand pupils’ vocabularies. It may be that they never use the word themselves, instead using any acceptable synonym, but they need to know what it means so if they should run across it elsewhere they don’t mistake it for a variant of the N-word.
Curiously enough, the OED states that “nigger” is a dialectal variant of “niggard” - the noun form from whence “niggardly”. Given that “niggard” dates from the 1370s and the use of “nigger” to describe Blacks dates from the 1780s, I rather suppose the dialectal variant far predates the ethnic term. Still wouldn’t use it, myself.
Well words that make them giggle because they allude to sex are different, I think, than words that make them giggle because they sould like racial epithets.
It might be a good idea not to teach the word so as to avoid this sort of problem. However, once the issue was raised, the school should absolutely not have reprimanded the teacher. They should have fully backed her up. She did nothing wrong.
Reprimanding the teacher sent a message that teachers can be punished for accusations of insensitivity, even bogus ones. This is unhealthy for teaching. The real losers are African-American students.
Words that make kids giggle that are actually the correct terms for body parts are at least laughed at because they are accurate. Words that resemble racial epithets are laughed at because they resemble racist words. That’s my feeling.