Controversies about the word "niggardly"

In the United States, there have been several controversies concerning the word "niggardly", an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly", because of its phonetic similarity to the racial slur "nigger". Etymologically the two words are unrelated.

"" (noun: "niggard") is an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly". It can be traced back at least to the Middle English word nigon, which has the same meaning, and is perhaps related to the Old Norse verb nigla, which means "to fuss about small matters".

"Nigger", a racial epithet in English, derives from the Spanish/Portuguese word negro, meaning "black", and the French word nègre. Both negro and noir (and therefore also nègre and nigger) ultimately come from nigrum, the accusative case singular masculine and neuter form of the Latin masculine adjective niger, meaning "black" or "dark".

On January 15, 1999, David Howard, an aide to Anthony A. Williams, the mayor of Washington, D.C., used "niggardly" in reference to a budget. This apparently upset one of his black colleagues (Howard is white), identified by Howard as Marshall Brown, who misinterpreted it as a racial slur and lodged a complaint. As a result, on January 25, Howard tendered his resignation, and Williams accepted it. However, after public pressure, an internal review into the matter was brought about, and the mayor offered Howard the chance to return to his position as Office of the Public Advocate on February 4. Howard refused but accepted another position with the mayor instead, insisting that he did not feel victimized by the incident. On the contrary, Howard felt that he had learned from the situation. "I used to think it would be great if we could all be colorblind; that's naïve, especially for a white person, because a white person can't afford to be colorblind. They don't have to think about race every day. An African American does."

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