Quote:
Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric:
There may not be anything wrong with the word "niggardly", but (as Azred pointed out, MOST people don't know what it means....so it is automatically assumed to be negative by association). Therefore, I would not use the word in mixed company.....or ANY company for that matter. I had never heard of the word until the incident with the congressman a couple of years ago. I hadn't used it before then, so there is no reason to start now. Moni is correct in that there are plenty of acceptable synonyms that communicate my message just as effectively - perhaps even more so.
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Uh sorry, but as a non-native speaker I always did know what the word meant. I really can't believe that most native speakers don't.
What I always liked so much about the English language is that it has so many synonyms, especially when it comes to nouns and adjectives. Usually there's a Germanic and a Romanic/Latinate alternative for them, and often even more than one. Of course you can use a substitute on occasion, the whole point of synonyms is that it makes your language more interesting and varied. I can tell you that when I was writing my student essays, I was sooo grateful for all the synonyms even a small thesaurus would yield. Without so many different words for "assert" "assumption" "divergent" "examine" and "interesting" my essays would sure have been monotonous
Why do away with a perfectly good word just because some people don't know what it means? It's insane, it makes the language poorer when words are written off on bases like these! And it's not as if you can't explain about the word's meaning if you happen to offend someone. Personally, I don't mind calling blacks (or whomever) whatever they prefer to be called - if it feels better to them I'll call them by the name they prefer. But that's a different matter altogether to me. Just my 2c [img]smile.gif[/img]