"Circe" wrote in message
news:sZsWb.39183$QJ3.10241@fed1read04...
Clisby wrote:
Circe wrote:
Nina wrote:
"Tine Andersen" wrote in message
k...

"Nina" skrev i en meddelelse
...

It's not 'negro' in Danish - it's 'neger'. But it's the same
word.

The english translation of "neger' would be "black" not
"negro"
as "negro" is basically
a euphemism for black. So calling black people "neger" is the
equivalent of calling them "black" here,
not "negro". Neger probably sounds like ******, which is a Bad
Word.

You are right - I checked my vocabulary - it's 'black'. Was
negro
a bad word 35 years ago?

No, negro was then standard usage. It changes.

Er, 35 years ago, I was 4 years old. I'm reasonably sure that
Negro was in disfavor by then. I believe "colored" was actually
the favored term by that time.

I think you have it backward - at least, for where I grew up, in
S.C. and Mississippi. "Colored" had been around for a long
time -
that's the term my parents (now in their 70s) had used all their
lives.
The NAACP is almost 100 years old, after all. I'm pretty sure
"Negro"
was more a '40s and '50s successor to "colored" - when I was
growing
up, the word "Negro" came with the implication the person saying
it
wasn't Southern.

That's interesting. I'd have guessed that in California (where I
grew up),
the term in favor by the late '60s or early '70s would have been
neither
colored nor Negro, but black. Certainly, when I was 8 (1972 or
thereabouts),
I had a neighbor friend who was black and we said she was "black",
not
Negro, not colored. (Of course, there were some kids in the
neighborhood who
called me a deregatory term I'll leave to your imagination as well.)

Black power, "Im black and Im proud" had a lot to do with the change
in terms
I believe this was in the late 60's early 70's. It was a pretty hip
young radical thing to do, to be
Black.


I was thinking, however, that colored was considered a less
offensive term
than Negro first, since blacks themselves used the term (as in the
NAACP).
I'll admit, my regionalism may be showing!


Black people (using a modifier as a noun is offensive, since "black"
is not a noun in English)
use the term negro.

, Negro was *always* a word with negative implications
because it was coined and used at a time when black people were
considered so inferior in the US that it was okay to enslave
them.
For obvious reasons, most people in the US now want to dissociate
themselves from that term and all its baggage.

I'm not sure I'd say "Negro" was coined - it just means black.

I disagree for the simple reason that Negro is *never* used to
define the
color of objects in English. It just isn't. The *only* use of the
word is to
describe people. That makes it a word with implications that the
word
"white"--and by extension "black"--don't have.

Negro is a noun, black isnt. So a person can be a black person or a
negro, but not a negro person or a black.



Certainly, in slave-holding times, the term for blacks was Negro (or
a much
ruder variation thereof). IMO, that means it was, by definition, not
a
value-neutral word.

It was neutral and over time it fell out of favor as did "coloreds".
You imply that by definition, any term used to refer to black people
in those days
would not be neutral. Thats absurd. Negro was a perfectly legit and
preferable term
as opposed to darky, coon, ****** , nigra.


And
I disagree that it always had negative connotations - at least not
in the way I think you mean. When I was a child, my parents
would
consider a person calling himself/herself a "Negro" to be an
outsider,
almost a radical - like someone leading a voting rights drive, for
example.
To them, it was a negative term - I doubt that it was to the
people who
used it to refer to themselves. (I'm sure Malcolm X considered it
a
negative term, but that's another story.)

That's very interesting. I really had no idea. Perhaps this was a
bit like
the gay movement appropriating the word "queer", however?

No Queer began as a negative word that was appropriated.
Negro never had negative connotations. FWIW, black people
often use the term "negro" amongst themselves jokingly.
Some white people didnt like the term because it was
"uppity" and formal, as if the nigras were putting on airs by
demanding to be called
Negroes.


e, Tine, we've got cultural differences even *within* the US!
--
Be well, Barbara
(Julian [6], Aurora [4], and Vernon's [23 mos.] mom)

This week's special at the English Language Butcher Shop:
Financing for "5" years -- car dealership sign

Mommy: I call you "baby" because I love you.
Julian (age 4): Oh! All right, Mommy baby.

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and
insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider,
its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin'
for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman