Episode 54 — Niggardly

[admin 330]

Happy New Years Eve race cars! Andrew Ti welcomes special guest Gabe Liedman to talk about new years resolutions and explain why niggardly is a word that shouldn’t ever be used. Stop being racist in 2013 and call us at (323) 389-RACE to ask us about racism.

[president cage 13]

smh

[president cage 13]

do racists actually use that word? I doubt it. Let's just hand racists a bunch of words they don't even use, and get mad at a bunch of non-racists for using them. this episode is garbage.

[strit 29]

i shave my head because im going bald and i dont wanna look like shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!!!!! m(__ __)m #noracist

[JamesCrackCorn 33]

I think the caller was agreeing with the host

[DanielSwinney 130]

i shave my head because im going bald and i dont wanna look like shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!!!!! m(__ __)m #noracist

 

Yeah, word. I started losing my hair at 18 and I wasn't going to go through college looking like a taller, whiter, skinny Danny Devito.

[DanielSwinney 130]

But yeah, the caller wasn't an asshole at all. Andrew and the guest host seem to often assume that whatever the caller is asking about is something they actually do, without any evidence.

[JamesCrackCorn 33]

.

[sissylion 41]

do racists actually use that word? I doubt it. Let's just hand racists a bunch of words they don't even use, and get mad at a bunch of non-racists for using them. this episode is garbage.

 

There are literally dozens of other words that mean the same thing. There is precisely one reason to use "niggardly" as opposed to its bevy of synonyms, and that reason is racism, yo.

[president cage 13]

Chaucer used it a few hundred years before the word it semi-resembles was even coined.

 

Handing words over to racists is bullshit, yo.

[sissylion 41]

Shakespeare used it, too; "Be not a niggard of your speech." (Macbeth, Act IV, scene iii, l. 180)

 

But the thing is, words change. There are hundreds of words that Shakespeare used that now mean different things, just like how reading Chaucer can be difficult if you don't know the original context of the language he wrote with. The fact that language evolves is the beauty of it, and in that change comes new terms entirely, "nigger" being one of them.

 

That word's introduction retroactively taints similar words before it. Is it unfortunate? Yeah, sure, but to ignore modern context of language and risk offending people just because you want to say a specific word is a pretty gross thing to do.

[president cage 13]

The meaning of "niggardly" didn't really change though. The people who have been fired for saying niggardly were using it correctly and did not seem to be using it as a racist code word. If racists were actually running around saying the word because they could get away with it, that would be gross, but this is a real case of people getting offended because of ignorance. I don't use the fucking word, but there's nothing actually wrong with it.

[kt 4]

While the meaning has not changed, people who use the word do so in order to get a reaction and they're assholes.

 

It's simple: Don't be an asshole.