Moments of Permanence - Wait, what?

From: tevriel.livejournal.com Date: March 30th, 2009 06:13 am (UTC) (Link)

Things you do not know about me because we only "met" recently: I double major in History and Linguistics. I know what false cognates are; I've proved them. However, that isn't what this is; words of identical spelling, with strong similarities of meaning, both occurring in nineteenth-century English, are unlikely candidates for false cognate status.

I know niggardly is a different word with different etymology. (It's also a word I didn't mention in this post, so I'm not sure why you brought it up.) I also know the explanation of "nigger" as corruption of "negro". This is why I am surprised and intrigued to find nigger being used to describe white working-class men in Britain in 1839; whether "nigger" had other associations in the common parlance of 19th-century aristocrats, or whether it was a deliberate association between the working class and black colonial natives, or what, is unclear to me at this point.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

From: ataxi.livejournal.com Date: March 30th, 2009 07:31 am (UTC) (Link)

The latter -- deliberate association between the working classes of England and the slave / servant classes of the colonies -- sounds most likely to me. Wasn't the use of similes such as "like a darkie", "like a nigger" etc. common in the past? Small step from that to a straight substitution (all speculation without facts of course).

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

From: tevriel.livejournal.com Date: March 30th, 2009 03:33 pm (UTC) (Link)

See below for context. But this is 1839. Enfranchisement at that point had just expanded to take in the middle classes and perhaps some of the skilled artisans, but these *aren't* the rabble we're talking about.

(Reply) (Parent)

From: arielstarshadow.livejournal.com Date: March 30th, 2009 11:26 am (UTC) (Link)

Any chance you can post the source document? That would be helpful for context purposes. :)

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

From: tevriel.livejournal.com Date: March 30th, 2009 01:47 pm (UTC) (Link)

Discussing the likelihood of the police force resulting in a new totalitarian overhaul of Britain, Colonel Charles Rowan of the Metropolitan police suggested that a way to avoid the:

danger to the liberties of the country would be to give the power absolutely of dismissal to the magistrates. Thus if the Secretary of State should take it into his head to endeavour to enslave a whole country (which is not at all [illegible] likely, after paying 20 million to enfranchise the niggers) by sending six or seven additional Police Constables...

Rest isn't that relevant.

(Reply) (Parent)

From: tevriel.livejournal.com Date: March 30th, 2009 03:31 pm (UTC) (Link)

I should make clear - in 1839, we're a few years after the Reform Act enfranchised much of the middle class, so long as they were reasonably well-off; the poor were still unenfranchised. He's not even talking about Really Poor people, just... tradesmen and the like.

(Reply) (Parent)