Really @Cheesesteak?
ANY native English speaker?
Including all those that do not reside in and have never been to the US?
Including all those that actually know what words mean and are not a part of the so-called American exceptionalism?
Bugger me, one one of the most common criticisms that we hear levelled against Americans is their ethnocentrism, and my aren’t you just providing a textbook example
I humbly await your references to contemporary uses of the word in non-American works, proving that it is used due to it’s unique shade of meaning, and not due to it’s unfortunate resemblance to a slur.
I’m Zimbabwean with English heritage; both niggardly and niggle have been part of my vocabulary since I could speak. Both have negative connotations - niggle less so, a niggle is a slight but persistent irritation; to be niggardly is to be exceptionally ungenerous; stingy, unwilling to give.
Longman: niggardly | meaning of niggardly in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English | LDOCE
The Oxford Dictionary: Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words
etc.
The word “nigger” as a pejorative was not the choice in all English speaking nations, for example in South Africa we have “kaffir” which, despite its etymology as an Arabic word for “non-believer” is considered FAR worse than “nigger”. Not that the latter is not insulting, just that the former is going to get you jail time in both this and my own country.
Sorry, but you’re being unreasonable here.
As scudsucker notes, “nigger” is known in other English-speaking countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand, etc.—largely due to the influence of American movies and music and history—but does not carry the same historical and cultural weight as it does in the United States.
People in those countries, even racists in those countries, would have no real incentive to use a word like “niggardly” just because it resembles a word that is not really used in those countries by racists anyway. Racists in South Africa and Zimbabwe will use “kaffir”; racists in Australia will be more likely to use words like “coon” or “boong” or “abo” if they are talking about the native black population.
I knew what the word “niggardly” meant years before I moved to the United States. I can’t recall what particular books or articles I had seen it in, but I used to read a lot as a kid and a young adult growing up in Australia, and I had a pretty decent vocabulary by the time I left high school. I don’t use the word at all now that I live in the United States, precisely because of the unfortunate resemblance it bears to an awful racial slur, and because of the fact that this resemblance has been magnified by public controversies over the word in the last few decades.
But I think it’s completely unreasonable to argue that anyone who uses “niggardly,” even people from countries where “nigger” is not part of the cultural landscape, must be doing it because of the resemblance between the two words. Should Americans stop referring to Daniel Boone’s coonskin cap because the word contains a racist pejorative with a long and ugly history in Australia?
Ok, I’ll succumb to the nitpick. Any American who uses the word is trying to make a point that has nothing to do with an exact type of cheapness. English speakers in other countries may use it genuinely to describe a cheap person.
But it’s precisely not a nitpick, because the world is not the United States.
I’ve lived in the United States for 20 years, and I often find myself defending America, and correcting some of my English and Australian and Canadian friends when they make large, unsupported generalizations about Americans. I point out to them it’s not fair to tar all Americans with the same brush, and that what they see on the news or the internet doesn’t necessarily represent how all Americans think and feel and act.
But if I get annoyed at foreigners making unreasonable generalizations about Americans, I get similarly frustrated when Americans blithely assume that the whole world runs by the same rules and standards as the United States, and that if something applies here, then it should apply elsewhere as well. This sort of attitude is most commonly found among narrow-minded or excessively partisan Americans, but even smart and thoughtful Americans can succumb to it at times. I know you’re in the latter group, not the former, but I’m still going to call it when I see it.
To be fair, it was only referring to English speaking countries, not the world.
I am an American, I have used that word, and it was never to try to “make a point that ha[d] nothing to do with an exact type of cheapness”. I used it because it described a type of cheapness that just doesn’t seem to be covered by “mean”, “stingy”, or “ungenerous”.
It irritates me that I can’t use it anymore without people taking offense, but since I try to be sensitive to that sort of thing, I don’t. Instead, I have to use a dozen or so words to describe a characteristic that used to be describable by one.
It’s annoying when words are removed from the language because of ignorance.
From what I can remember I likely picked up niggardly during reading, and if it were to be removed, then niggle would also need to disappear,.
I’ve always thought of “stingy” or “miserly” as unwilling to spend or excessively frugal, whereas niggardly would be meanly stingy - it may not be in “common” usage in day to day language, but part of the beauty of language is that there are words to go to when you want them.
It’s a word I knew the meaning of, but, damn, if I can remember actually hearing it used. I’m in America, so I avoid it.
What exactly is the precise meaning of niggardly that is so different? I don’t see it.
Maybe it’s just me, but stingy seems “meaner” to me than niggardly. 
The only time I ever heard the word outside of the context of its controversy was while we were reading some book in an English class in Junior high or something.
The rest of the day, there was giggling and snickering about it.
All I know is, I’m gonna think twice before I give thus to Gondor the fairest thing in my realm, if it’s going to cause this much trouble.
Our of curiosity –
IF you take the position that the namesake for niggardly is n******,
is being meanly parsimonious a sterotype that would be commonly held?
i.e - I know the Dutch and Scots have a reputation for being careful with money,
(one thing that has stuck with me - when I was selling timeshare the marketing dept would skip “Van” in the phone book because of this reputation)
“Niggardly” implies a level of pettiness that “stingy” does not convey.
Am I the only one who remembers this word from SAT prep?
I never took SAT prep. I think I picked it up from books, but it was long, long ago.
Yeah, I never took any SAT prep either. Still got a combined 1535 (when 1600 was a perfect score…is it still?).
Dayyyum, dude. I thought I did well with 1410 (kicked butt on verbal, better than average but not great on math)
Essentially, that’s me, too, but I did better on the math than I expected. And I did kick butt on the verbal!
I can’t help feel a little resentful of the kids who take all those prep courses. They (the courses, not the students, well, the students, too, I guess) basically didn’t exist when I took the SAT. I took my SAT in the snow – both ways!
When I say “SAT prep,” I mean 12th grade English. Mrs Timothy drilled all sorts of vocabulary words into our heads.
The closest I ever got to an SAT prep course was my Mother buying a Barron’s SAT prep book, and my strenuous avoidance thereof.
1390
UPHILL AND BAREFOOT, TO BOOT!
[ETA: fucking nannyware or something, it won’t let me post just the above. Claims it’s unclear, wants to know if it’s a complete sentence, and clicking OK doesn’t MAKE IT GO AWAY.]