Maddy, I love your explanation of the word "denigrates." Yes, biological parents Greek, step father Japanese. I seem to always have had a love for languages and how they function. I came to Oz when I was 13 and this seems to be a pivotal age for this sort of thing: the transience from one language to another and the fascination for both. Apparently, had I arrived a couple of years either side of 13 it wouldn't exist -but that might well be debatable. Young migrant kids follow their parents and relos everywhere because the older folk find it harder to learn a language. The kids act as interpreters in every situation. Gets them involved with the language, the dictionaries, the newspapers, the books, etc. I remember spending many happy hours translating for my parents what The Herald had to say on a daily basis.
As for "denigrating" it was a word used to insult the blacks: "nigger" being part of its root... but here is what Michael Quinlon ([email protected]) has to say about it:
A recent film, The Great Debaters, suggests that "denigrate" is an offensive term for African-Americans because it means "to make black". The Denzel Washington character says that the word has racist undertones because of this. What do you think? [Charles Hendrickson]
A. The story sounds extremely unlikely. Whether it's just a simple mistake or an underdog's attempt to find an insult where none was intended, I've no way of knowing (I've not seen the film, though I understand that it is set in the American South during the Great Depression and conveys the day-to-day insults and slights African- Americans had to endure). The argument would carry more conviction if we could find examples of "denigrate" being used as a racial insult or with racist implications. So far, I haven't found any.
There's enough truth in the etymology to give the story legs. It does come from the Latin "niger", meaning "black", via the verb "denigrare", to blacken. At one time it could be used in English with that literal sense, but from when it first appeared, in the sixteenth century, it also had a figurative sense of blackening somebody's character or staining their reputation. This goes back to ancient ideas in western culture that black is the colour of despair, misery, wickedness or infamy.
So it is easy to see how "denigrate" could be thought to be a bad word for black Americans. It reminds me of the fuss some years ago over "niggardly" (see http://wwwords.org?NGGX). In that case, there was evidence that the word was indeed thought to be disparaging and complaints were made about an instance of its use. However, so far as I know, no such belief or perceived insult is currently present in the black American community. The way that it is said, with the stress on the first syllable, obscures the supposed origin.
But if popular films argue powerfully enough that it is insulting, then no doubt it will become so and another useful word in our language will become possible to use only with great care.
