The N-word is very much the ultimate trigger-word right now. Despite this being a full article about this precise epithet, I am unable to easily use it. Just to be safe from malicious prosecution or algorithmic suppression, even free speech websites like the Daily Sceptic will generally use asterisks to obscure it as ‘n****r’, even though you all know perfectly well what full word the typography indicates. It’s not ‘number’ or ‘nectar’ (‘neuter’ might be quite appropriate, though).
– Steven Tucker, writing In Minnesota, words matter more than rape.
Words of Power lose their impact when overused or habitually misused, which is why “fascist” and “racist”, once useful categoric descriptions with specific meanings, now mean almost nothing beyond “someone I do not like and wish to place beyond the pale”.
However “nigger”, absolutely a word of power in a strangely inverted way, is just a crass insult. Yet it is so powerful we’re required to render it as “the N-word”, akin to saying “Adonai” rather than the true name of God. Yet bizarrely in this two-tier civilization of ours, it becomes acceptable when used by melanin enhanced rappers, in which case it becomes something more akin to “geezer” or “my crew” or various other non-taboo things, depending on context.
It’s a funny old world.
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is a video game released on 26th October 2004 by Rockstar Games. The hero is Carl Johnson and the story is about his return and rebuilding of the street gang he had previously left. There is plenty of violence and sexual innuendo and Carl’s friends, mostly black, use street language with lots of use of the informal versions of the N word. It does not bother me at all. You can find a text version of the dialogue on the internet if you wish.
But I wouldn’t use the N word or its informal variants myself.
Consider this article to be more a condemnation of my own state, Minnesota, than anything else. We are the land of Political Correctness, the land of Somalis-Are-Gods, the Stupid State.
Remember, we are the state that imprisoned Officer Chauvin for murder.
And have no fear for Shiloh. Her GoFundMe raised a million bucks for her! So, she’s good.
To whoever authorised this article, I give you full credit for using the word in full, in a headline no less, and in censored Britain.
It is cultural appropriation. White people invented the word to describe blacks and the blacks appropriated it solely and aggressively for their own use.
Political correctness can cut both ways …
Aigger
Bigger
Cigger
Digger
Eigger
Figger
Gigger
Higger
Iigger
Jigger
Kigger
Ligger
Migger
[Anagram of ‘ginger’ whose usage could get me busted in Minnesota]
Oigger
Pigger
Qigger
Rigger
Sigger
Tigger
Uigger
Vigger
Wigger
Xigger
Yigger
Zigger
Are we allowed to use the word describing black paint sold in every Spanish hardware store?
I thought that was California. Or maybe New York.
But there is so much competition these days!
It’s interesting, however, that Minnesota used to be sort of a new Scandinavia, only wealthier. (Or so i understand, i have never been there.)
Incidentally, in the 1938 Nero Wolfe novel, Too Many Cooks, there is an unpleasant character (a sheriff in West Virginia) who uses the word ‘nigger’ rather casually. Nobody else does iirc. But i do not know how well the novel reflects reality in West Virginia at the time.
It’s a pity people can’t distinguish between using a word in an active sense, for example as an intended insult, and simply mentioning or quoting the word.
It seems that there is one of Joseph Conrad’s novels which you can’t ask for by name in a bookshop. Nor could you quote from the Randy Newman song “Rednecks”.
The novel Huckleberry Finn, one of the greatest novels in American literature, was bowdlerised in recent years to remove the word. Several others include Ian Fleming’s Live and Let Die.
In such cases, the authors used a word that would have been used by people at the time and in certain circumstances. It didn’t mean they thought it was appropriate to use that word themselves. And yet too many culture warriors can’t make that distinction. I thought being able to do so was a mark of being educated.
The word ‘niggardly’ has absolutely no relation to the N-word, either in meaning or in etymology, coming as it does from Old English, rather than ultimately from Latin as the N-word does.
Yet there are midwits for whom the mere similarity in sound is enough to get people censured for using the word. This, by the way, is not a modern thing. The controversies go back nearly thirty years.
This isn’t exactly a difficult one.
If you’re using it purely because you think it’s “forbidden” or you think you’re being a little bit of a naughty boy by using it, then chances are, you’re a bit of a knob – word chosen deliberately.
(Likewise, the word “queer” has been kinda reclaimed by teh kidz, but if a 60 year old fella who only ever used it as a slur in the 80s/90s starts using it because “the kids use it” and “why aren’t I allowed to??”, then I’m gonna look at him askance and suspect he’s only using it because he’s an arsehole)
Even here in Australia, the ‘N’ word is rarely used. Would Negro be acceptable, since it is a word from the Latin language? Maybe you could use ‘nagger’?
neonsnake – the word “queer” was not, normally, a harsh description of homosexuals, if someone wanted to be harsh they said “sodomite” (the religious and legal term – from the days when the penalty was death) not “queer”. I am not sure what you mean by “slur” in this context – as the word “slur” normally implies that someone is NOT what they are being called. Saying someone was “queer” was just slang for homosexual – these days it means an academic study (one of the many aspects of Frankfurt School Marxism) “queering” and so on is, all the rage in the study of English literature – and some other subjects.
F.A. Hayek once said that Keynes was not concerned with the long term because he, Lord Keynes, was a homosexual (like so many at Cambridge at that time – the love of Plato, the disdain for Aristotle, and the opposition to female students being allowed degrees) – and, therefore, did not care about future generations – but that does NOT work as many homosexuals are concerned about the long term – they DO care about future generations.
The Cambridge philosopher Bertrand Russell was certainly NOT a homosexual – and he was even more of a Collectivist than Keynes was (both called themselves liberals – and were nothing of the kind).
It was the word “sodomite” that led to the libel action of Oscar Wilde against the Marquis of Queensberry, if the Marquis had said “Mr Wilde is queer” – Mr Wilde would have laughed it off, but the word “sodomite” made it a serious matter.
By the way, Carson, who successfully defended the Marquis of Queensberry in the libel court, did NOT want Mr Wilde prosecuted for sodomy – but was told that now the matter had become so public, a prosecution was unavoidable.
Thankfully the 19th century had seen a massive reduction in the penalty for homosexual acts – in the 1700s the penalty was still death, which horrified Edmund Burke – who was certainly not a homosexual, but was horrified at how harshly they were sometimes (sometimes) treated.
Lastly “bugger” as in “he is a silly bugger” originally came from the slang word for sodomy (buggery) – but even when I was young calling someone a “bugger” or a “silly bugger” did not mean you were accusing them of homosexual acts.
Snorri Godhi – West Virginia had few black people, that is why this area broke away from Virginia during the Civil War, why fight for slavery when your part of the world (mostly mountains and mountain valleys) has few slaves anyway?
But that did not mean they liked black people – they, generally, did not like them – and wanted to keep them out (the Democrat Labor Unions were very clear on this point – they did not want black workers coming in, in large numbers, to compete with white workers – and West Virginia only became a Right to Work State a couple of years ago, in the past unions were important). The head of the KKK (the KKK was overwhelmingly Democrat – and hated “Capitalist” Big Business) in West Virginia was Robert Byrd – who became a leading Senator and friend of Hillary Clinton and co. He specialized in “bringing home the bacon” – i.e. Federal tax money financed projects, with his name all over them.
These days, sadly, West Virginia had largely switched from “Moonshine” (the old Scots-Irish tradition of distilling spirits – without a license and without paying tax) to synthetic opiates.
For every person the People’s Republic of China has killed with its “Covid” (produced at the lab in Wuhan – and then either deliberately released, or accidentally released) – they have killed many more with synthetic opiates.
The PRC sees this as “revenge for opium” – but the “Opium Plague” in China was massively exaggerated, see Frank Dikotter’s book “The Myth of the Opium Plague”.
I’d have a lot to say about this word, but I’ll confine myself to this: I find it troubling that the word has taken on something akin to magical properties such that even discussion of it is banned, as if it is a magic spell that will reign down racism of any poor dark skinned person in its proximity.
And even if the word is to be banished from polite society (or polite white society anyway) doesn’t mean it should be criminal to say it. On the contrary that is an abomination, and I find it particularly troubling that the government should try to do an end run around the constitution by calling it “disorderly conduct” rather than censorship. I mean if that stands free speech is over in the United States. Hopefully this lady will pursue it far enough that a senior court agrees and stops that kind of nonsense in its track.
Snorri and bobby b – Minnesota is indeed often compared to Sweden (to Sweden specifically – rather than Scandinavia generally) – but the Swedish people have been waking up and trying to deal with their problems (although the next election may be a disaster – there are bad signs) – whereas the people of Minnesota do not tend to wake up.
Denmark is interesting – very “Social Democrat” but of its own sort, Danish Social Democrats (unlike Swedish ones) are not interested in giving their country away to hostile migrants (or the children and grandchildren of hostile migrants – as the much promised “assimilation” does not tend to happen) – Danish Social Democrats tend to look inward, rather than being obsessed with following the agenda of the International Community.
As for the “N word” Pensivet is correct – it was in paint catalogues and so on, and not just in Spain – everywhere. And people named beloved black dogs “Nigger” – and put up memorials to them.
Memorials that are now covered up.
Nicholas Gray is correct – it is a corruption of the Latin word.
Just as Londoners used the word “nous” (mind – intellect) – although they normally did not know it was from Ancient Greek.
My father did know.
As for the modern (modern – not pre 1930s) Civil Rights movement.
Well Rosa Parks had a car – the lady was on the bus because the party told her to be on the bus, and by “the party” I do not mean the Democrats or the Republicans.
Martin Luther King – his doctorate was gained the same way that Jason Arday gained his (plagiarism – the same is true of the “I have a Dream” speech – which was taken from the speech of a black pastor to the Republican Party Convention of 1956), but there is much worse – in 1977 a judge forbad the publication of the recordings of the real Martin Luther King (the real politics, the alliance with the Reds – and the real behavour towards women, so much for “the content of character”), but the transcripts (including cheering on the rape) have long ago leaked.
But there we are – as Robert Graves put it in “I Claudius” (or was it in “Claudius the God”?) as an historian, and indeed a relative of Octavian, Claudius was only too well aware of his flaws (indeed crimes) – but there is also the God “Augustus” who has gone beyond the mortal flaws of Octavian, and as a priest of Rome – Claudius has no problem in sacrificing to the God Augustus – and leading people in worship of this being.
Today MLK is more a symbol of opposition to segregation – and segregation was indeed WRONG (ruled to be wrong, 9-0, by the Supreme Court in 1954). The actual person is perhaps best glossed over.
Although one point should be remembered – it was no accident that “Black Lives Matter” was created by Marxists and controlled by Marxists – the Civil Rights movement was infiltrated as long ago as the 1930s.
All institutions and movements were infiltrated – and these days the infiltration is worse (not less severe – more severe) than it was in the past.
I’m old. 70. When I was a kid, the word for a black was nigger. It was simply the accepted word.
My Minnesota grandfather had a bunch of fishing buddies, black and white. Everyone – including the blacks – casually and non-hostilely referred to the blacks as niggers.
There was no implied insult. It was just a word used to refer to black people. The insult was a gradual accretion onto the word over the following decades.
When we lived in Los Angeles, the word for blacks was mayate. Using that word, the insult was explicit and hostile – never simply a neutral label.
Of course, to all of them, I was ofay, a honkey, a cracker. None of this was one-sided.
Try Nickers” (from the youtube channel AI Frogs). Watch ALL the way to the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajhzy5jqVa8
They did one on Saint Floyd of George too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn8EnVDl9wo
Surprisingly, they have been up for two years without being banned/deleted or otherwise censored.
Penseivat, August 22, 2026 at 10:05 am: Are we allowed to use the word describing black paint sold in every Spanish hardware store?
One wonders also how long British paint manufacturers will be allowed to continue selling a colour called ‘Pure Brilliant White’ – because, obviously, using the first two words in association with the third must surely be an egregious faux-pas in polite society these days.
It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is; it doesn’t hurt you.
Atticus Finch
Wasn’t the Agatha Christie story Ten Little Indians originally titled Ten Little Enwords?