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Amaros -> RE: Sick of PC (10/10/2006 6:47:39 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster
Yeah, of course. No "argument" is ever going to convince you, because you're convinced of what you're saying, even if no one else in the world accepts it. But at least don't ask people to look up etymologies in OED when those same etymologies refute what you're trying to say.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Amaros
I don't wish to argue the point further, untill I can do some real research on it, have it your way, I stand by my original post, with the qualifications stated in the follow up. Your argument has, as yet, failed to convince me otherwise.
As I said, I'll take the subject up with you later, when I'm in a position to provide more subtantive backup than my sometimes faulty memory. I did concede that the Portugest "Niger" may have been combined through metathesis - two words that sound much alike - homophones - meet, and the actors decide it must simply be a difference in pronunciation, and one word emerges, with a new, more specific meaning.
The root word Nigla, Scandanavian in origin, may have been introduced during the Norman conquest, and migrated it's way over here - it's derivitives seem to have been first used among the Pennsivania Dutch (German, Dutch is mistranslation of Deutsch), and was not used explicitly to describe Blacks.
i.e. Nigla and it's derivitives are very similar in sound to Negro, noir, etc., Latin derived words for "Dark", and it's not difficult to see how confusion might arise in a multicultural social environment. IN fact, the two meaning are still confused, one runs a certain risk using "niggard", which explicitly derives from Nigla, because it sounds so similar to the other one.
Read "A People History of the United States" for a more accurate description of that social environment - the social division between Blacks and Whites did not always exist in the common culture the way it does now.
Wikipdia asserts that Nigla and that other word are not related, but cites nothing to back up their assertion, and neither do you - I'm pretty certian I didn't imagine the research paper I read, but I don't currently have access to the college library where I read it. Next time I take classes I'll see if I can find it again, and furnish the citation for you.
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