The “Niggardly” Debate

In 1999, David Howard, who is white and assistant to Mayor Anthony Williams, who is black, caused an uproar when he used the word “niggardly” when referring to the current budget. While niggardly sounds like the extremely offensive word we won't publish, they are linguistically unrelated (niggardly comes from Old Norse) and he said he was not trying to be provocative with its use (it means "stingy"). Howard immediately resigned from public pressure, but many people felt he was wrongfully terminated, including Julian Bond, who was president of the NAACP. Howard was eventually reinstated and the upside is that he felt it led to a national discussion about race issues and greater awareness about language.