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Getting it.
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Location: Lion City
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Etymology of Nigger:
Quote:
nigger
1786, earlier neger (1568, Scot. and northern England dialect), from Fr. nègre, from Sp. negro (see Negro). From the earliest usage it was "the term that carries with it all the obloquy and contempt and rejection which whites have inflicted on blacks" [cited in Gowers, 1965]. But as black inferiority was at one time a near universal assumption in Eng.-speaking lands, the word in some cases could be used without insult. More sympathetic writers late 18c. and early 19c. seem to have used black (n.) and, after the American Civil War, colored person. Also applied by Eng. settlers to dark-skinned native peoples in India, Australia, Polynesia. The reclamation of the word as a neutral or positive term in black culture, often with a suggestion of "soul" or "style," is attested first in the Amer. South, later (1968) in the Northern, urban-based Black Power movement. Variant niggah, attested from 1925 (without the -h, from 1969), is found usually in situations where blacks use the word. Nigra (1944), on the other hand, reflects a pronunciation in certain circles of Negro, but meant to suggest nigger, and is thus deemed (according to a 1960 slang dictionary) "even more derog. than 'nigger.' " Slang phrase nigger in the woodpile attested by 1800; "A mode of accounting for the disappearance of fuel; an unsolved mystery" [R.H. Thornton, "American Glossary," 1912]. Nigger heaven, "the top gallery in a (segregated) theater" first attested 1878 in ref. to Troy, N.Y.
" 'You're a fool nigger, and the worst day's work Pa ever did was to buy you,' said Scarlett slowly. ... There, she thought, I've said 'nigger' and Mother wouldn't like that at all." [Margaret Mitchell, "Gone With the Wind," 1936]
Used in combinations (e.g. nigger-brown, nigger-head, nigger-toe) since 1840s for various dark brown or black hues or objects; euphemistic substitutions (e.g. Zulu) began to appear in these senses c.1917.
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Quote:
Etymology
From Latin niger, "black".
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Pronunciation
nĭg'ə(r), /ˈnɪɡə(r)/, /"nIg@(r)/
Rhymes: -ɪɡə(r)
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Usage Note
Although this word comes from the Latin word niger, which simply means black, the use of this word to refer to a black or a person of African descent is normally considered pejorative (most often extremely, highly, or strongly so). The word is, however, used by some black people as a neutral or even affirmative term when used in the form of "nigga".
When used by someone who is not black, nigger is almost invariably considered offensive. In its pejorative sense, it arguably ranks as the most offensive and insulting racial/ethnic term in English, carrying with it strong connotations of cultural, aesthetic, and intellectual inferiority or deficiency (such connotations of deficiency extending to a perception of exoticism). Indeed, the term can be callously cruel: with its most conceivably creatively pejorative uses (e.g., if a non-black were to hurl the term at a random black in a wincing and forceful way), the term can be loaded with meanings that all exude a perception of a highly deficient and exotic thinghood at its target, as unfair and false as the perceptions may be.
Changing attitudes and realizations towards those of black origin (e.g., realizing that blacks are not intellectually, or in other ways, inferior to other races; acknowledgement of highly significant cultural contributions made by blacks; civil rights advances made by blacks) has made the writing of this word taboo in many instances, or if it is written, it is often obfuscated as "N_____", "N****r", etc.
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