Your thoughts on the word "niggardly"

[Attalus]

Personally, I don't care who gets offended when a word is used properly. BTW, the word "niggard" is used in LOTR in ROTK, when Aragorn, speaking of Eowyn's impending marriage to Faramir, says, "No niggard are you, Eomyr, to give away the fairest thing in your realm." Are you going to ban that, too? It's like Twain's use of the "N-word" in Huckleberry Finn, that PC people get bent out of shape about every few years. The trouble is that Huckleberry Finn is probably the greatest novel ever written by an American. Rationalize that. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 09-04-2002, 01:54 PM: Message edited by: Attalus ]

[Sazerac]

The most ridiculous use of ignorance in PC was when a group of people in a small town in Tennessee back in 1997 publicly ostracized a doctor in their community because he -- get this -- specialized in pediatrics.

Now, even given some broad sense of leeway here to ignorance, how can you confuse "pediatrics" with "pederasty"? Because that is the charge they were levying against him, simply because of the name of his profession. He was forced to change the name of his practice to "Specialist in Youth Health and Diseases" to appease the idiots.

Granted, it was a small town (Jackson, Tennessee, I think) but still! [img]graemlins/1disgust.gif[/img]

-Saz

[skywalker]

I don't even want to think about what these people have to say about State Penal Codes!

mark

[Keraptisdm]

We cannot continue to sanitize our speech and vocabulary just because a word offends someone. (Profanity is never acceptable, or vulgar words.) Nor can we rewrite history to please those that do not like it. One of the synonyms for parsimonious is niggardly. Do we ban the use of the word parsimonious because it is a synonym of that other word? What if someone says the word chicken is offensive? Do we ban the use of the word chicken? My point is that this sanitizing has to stop. Get over it. Sometime in your life, you will find something offensive, but that's no reason to contact a lawyer. I have an idea, instead of banning offensive words, why don't people try being polite, considerate and use manners around each other.

[Sigmar]

Originally posted by Keraptisdm: We cannot continue to sanitize our speech and vocabulary just because a word offends someone. (Profanity is never acceptable, or vulgar words.) Nor can we rewrite history to please those that do not like it. One of the synonyms for parsimonious is niggardly. Do we ban the use of the word parsimonious because it is a synonym of that other word? What if someone says the word chicken is offensive? Do we ban the use of the word chicken? My point is that this sanitizing has to stop. Get over it. Sometime in your life, you will find something offensive, but that's no reason to contact a lawyer. I have an idea, instead of banning offensive words, why don't people try being polite, considerate and use manners around each other.

Did you hear about the person a while back who started a petition a while back hoping to change the name of the up and coming The two towers lord of the rings movie because they believed it was an insulting reference to September 11th, people can find anything offensive if they try hard enough.

[Attalus]

I guess that they think that Fire Island is a "Penal Colony," with lots of pediatricians. A friend of mine got in trouble a few years ago, for his habit of calling people "putzes", as a humorous insult. He said it in front of a Jewish lady and she was shocked. It seems that in Yiddish, "Putz" means , erm, the penal area. But, that was his ignorance, using a word whose meaning he didn't know.

[Lox]

That is too good Sazerac. ROTFLMAO.

But seriously, I was curious as to the origins of the words "niggard" and "■■■■■■." According to Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Online College Dictionary:

Niggard:
Etymology: Middle English, of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse hnøggr niggardly; akin to Old English hnEaw niggardly
Date: 14th century

■■■■■■:
Etymology: alteration of earlier neger, from Middle French negre, from Spanish or Portuguese negro, from negro black, from Latin niger
Date: 1700

I thought they may have been related, but apparently not. I guess it is a case of guilt by aural association.

[Horatio]

ouch, this takes me back.
Friend of mine back in secondary school (high school to Americans) used to have a speech inpediment that meant when he tried to say something, every few words would be stuttered or wrong. One such time he was talking on the bus and used this word, but the problem was that the word, while not actually BEING the N-word in theory or practise, was so unhearable due to his impedement that it SOUNDED like the N-word. An african woman in the seats in front of us turned round and started shouting, and my friends and I calmly explained about the problem and had a go at her for eavesdropping in the first place. seeing it displayed here gave me a VIVID flash back

[Melusine]

Wow, unbelieveable!! I'dnever even associated those two words with each other
What a bunch of idiots, they have no idea how stupid they make themselves look! (Saz, your pediatrics story baffled me... human stupidity never seems to end )

I like the Hunter's idea of printing out the definition of the word... [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

[Tanoch Thas'ala]

Originally posted by Attalus: Personally, I don't care who gets offended when a word is used properly. BTW, the word "niggard" is used in LOTR in ROTK, when Aragorn, speaking of Eowyn's impending marriage to Faramir, says, "No niggard are you, Eomyr, to give away the fairest thing in your realm." Are you going to ban that, too? It's like Twain's use of the "N-word" in Huckleberry Finn, that PC people get bent out of shape about every few years. The trouble is that Huckleberry Finn is probably the greatest novel ever written by an American. Rationalize that. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

But look at the times those books were written. Then, it was socially acceptable to call out "■■■■■■" and others slanderous terms.

However, if I were to write a book about slavery, more than likey the word ■■■■■■ and other derogatory terms would be used.

But that does not mean these terms should be used or said lightly.

Neither Huck Finn, nor LOTR, will be banned, or edited. More than likely such books will be used as a comentary on the times in which they were written and their subject matter.