Calling a spade a spade

[Starya]

Merriam Webster says:

Main Entry: nig·gard·ly
Pronunciation: -lE
Function: adjective
1 : grudgingly mean about spending or granting : BEGRUDGING
2 : provided in meanly limited supply
synonym see STINGY
- nig·gard·li·ness noun
- niggardly adverb


And also (since Tonks asked)

Main Entry: nig·ger
Pronunciation: 'ni-g&r
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of earlier neger, from Middle French negre, from Spanish or Portuguese negro, from negro black, from Latin niger
1 usually offensive; see usage paragraph below : a black person
2 usually offensive; see usage paragraph below : a member of any dark-skinned race
3 : a member of a socially disadvantaged class of persons <it's time for somebody to lead all of America's niggers...all the people who feel left out of the political process -- Ron Dellums>
usage Nigger in senses 1 and 2 can be found in the works of such writers of the past as Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens, but it now ranks as perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English. Its use by and among blacks is not always intended or taken as offensive, but, except in sense 3, it is otherwise a word expressive of racial hatred and bigotry.

 

[SouthernN'Proud]

Ecru?

Gesundheit.

 

[Starya]

I always wondered as a child if the N word came from a bastardized version of the country Niger...but then I was told that it came from the Spanish Negro for black...but some folks hold that the definition is not a black person but an ignorant person...I'm so confused.

I would think that the use of n***** to describe an ignorant person is rooted in the use of it to describe a black person, as a black person would be considered ignorant (or socially disadvantaged as M-W said) by many back in them retched old days?

 

[chcr]

Huh? Peach is not a color. Peach is a fruit. Same for Cantoupe, chocolate, strawberry, or any other made-up crap used to sell a bad mix...

Unless you're buying a Jaguar, of course.

Never said you did. Just chalk it up to the ramblings of a sane old man...

Heh. Every once in a while I consider writing a book. Actually have about a third of one finished (sword and sorcery thing, kinda indirectly about gods and religion, if you can imagine). Anyway, years ago someone suggested I should collect all my little "chic-isms" as he called them in a book. Since he was an editor for a small southwestern publisher, I thought about it and actually typed up a few pages. My working title was "Incessant Ramblings of a Sane Man." I may have been reaching beyond my ability there.