Niggardly Revisited

Some month ago Anders wrote his inital post on the word niggardly. Discussion got slightly heated, and I wrote a slightly harsh post in reply to it.

As known time generally cools down any heated feeling towards one thing or the other, and except for the fact that the posting still is one of the most read postings on in my blog I more or less forgot about the entire thing. Until yesterday that is.

I was reading Tom Clancy's newest novel Red Rabbit, and got as far as page 148 (Putnam, Hardcover) when I read the following sentence: He knew The Centre was always niggardly with the money it payed out, [...] I was slightly stunned. And then slightly happy. The word niggardly is actually in use.

Needless to say, the word was not used in any racial context. It was merely used to describe the way the KGB spent money on foreign spies.

It is good to see that not all people in the US are being eaten by the political correctness movement.

Posted by ludvig at October 1, 2002 11:10 PM | TrackBack