Date:  Tue, 28 Oct 1997 12:29:05 -0500
From:  "David A. Johns" <djohns[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PEACHNET.CAMPUS.MCI.NET>
Subject: Re: PC Dictionaries?

At 11:37 AM 10/28/97 -0500, Steve Nolden wrote:
> I am a Black man, not African-American, and the use of the word
"Nigger"
> or shall I say the definition of the word, in the Merriam
dictionary
> greatly offends me. Who gave them the right to define any one
person or
> race. Is the publisher of Merriam God. Nope. So what gives him
the
> right to call me a "Nigger." If he called all white people
"Peckerwoods"
> then all white people would most likely be offended. Being labeled
is
> not a good thing. I cant see how someone can support Merriam's
> definition. Personally, since the dictionary wants to define black
> people as "Niggers" then the dictionary should include all
derogatory
> statements about all races.

>From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, p. 19a
(Explanatory Notes), Order of Senses: "The order of senses within an
entry is historical: the sense known to have been first used in
English is entered first."

>From the definition of "nigger": "1: a black person -- usu. taken to
be offensive 2: a member of any dark-skinned race -- usu. taken to
be offensive 3: a member of a socially disadvantaged class of
persons <it's time for somebody to lead all of American's ~s ... all
the people who feel left out of the political process -- Ron Dellums>
 _usage_ _Nigger_ in senses 1 and 2 can be found in the works of such
writers of the past as Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, and Charles
Dickens, but it now ranks as perhaps the most offensive and
inflammatory racial slur in English. Its use by and among blacks is
not always intended or taken as offensive, but, except in sense 3, it
is otherwise a word expressive of racial hatred and bigotry."

Don't you get the impression that whoever wrote the NAACP press
release didn't actually look in the dictionary he or she was
condemning?

--
David Johns
Waycross College
Waycross, GA 31501