Posted by Robert Dilley on March 28, 2002 at 21:36:16 from 216.211.68.96:
In Reply to: Re: Shackleton; (was: Colonialism in S&As) posted by Jonathan Labaree on March 28, 2002 at 19:30:35:
I hope Jonathan Labaree was being tongue-in-cheek writing that niggardly would be unacceptable in the US. The point of the Washington story was that people simply assumed the word was offensive from its sound and did not trouble to find out what it really meant. It has, of course, nothing to do with the dreaded N word (which is derived from the Spanish for "black") but is from much a older word, probably Scandinavian, nigon, meaning much the same as the American "tightwad". I hope we have not reached the point where we have to censor words that someone might think sounds like something that someone might take offence at. Incidentally, my Chambers describes "piccaninny" as "now offensive". It is also of Spanish origin (pequeno nino -- don't know how to do the tildes over the ns) or Portuguese (pequenino).
Our Man in Florida has raised several points in the past about different usages of words in the UK and the US. This applies equally to offensive words. As one small example, which shouldn't shock too many sensitive TARS, the word "sod" is a perfectly acceptable in Canada and the US as an alternative to "grass", especially lawn grass. There is quite a thriving business in raising lawn grass for sale. A few years ago I was at an international conference on Rural Geography in Southern Ontario. The keynote speaker at the banquet was the the provincial Deputy Minister of Agriculture, and when he proudly announced that earlier in his career he had been a sod farmer this caused considerable mirth among the UK contingent (academics are very easily amused). Last summer we had visitors from the UK here in Thunder Bay. Right across the road from a major shopping mall was a huge sign announcing in 10-ft-high red letters simply "SOD". Our visitors kept giving it peculiar looks, doubtless wondering just what was being advertised. (Unenlightened North Americans look it up -- I'm not giving an explanation on this site). So there's another peril authors have to watch out for -- an innocent word in one culture could bring you trouble in another....