OH EM GEE, that is, like, soooooooo racist!!!11 
Some restaurant called Sunny Rose Cafe is none too pleased with Chairman Maobama:
A sign outside a northern California business that accuses President Obama of being “niggardly” is causing controversy among locals, KTXL-TV reported Wednesday.
The sign, located along a freeway in Acampo, Calif. says “Obama = niggardly” and that he “hurts small biz.” Another part of the sign reads “Buck Ofama.”
One motorist told KTXL that the sign was associated with the Sunny Rose Cafe in Acampo. A telephone listing for the business on Google was disconnected, according to KTXL.
The word “niggardly,” despite sounding like a racial epithet, actually means ” grudgingly mean about spending or granting” according to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary and is believed to have its origin prior to that of the racial slur.
The word “niggardly” gained national attention in the U.S. back in 1999 when David Howard, an assistant to then-Washington, D.C., mayor Anthony Williams, resigned after using the word in a speech to describe the city’s budget.
This is an outrage! WTF?!
Are you trying to tell me that in this great nation of ours, these United States of America, people didn’t know what “niggardly” meant until 1999?!
Listen up, y’all: “niggardly” has nothing to do with, you know, that other word:
Here’s the definition of “niggardly,” straight from Merriam-Webster to your face:
Main Entry: nig·gard·ly
Pronunciation: \-l?\
Function: adjective
Date: 1571
1 : grudgingly mean about spending or granting : begrudging
2 : provided in meanly limited supply
synonyms: see stingy
It has nothing to do with black people or racism. It sounds like it might. But come on, people. The word has been around since 1571! That’s like, at least twenty years ago. Yet the word only “gained national attention” in 1999?
No wonder our childrens isn’t learning.
Besides, don’t we have better things to do than to be outraged at the use of a word that merely sounds bad? If some racist dumbfuck wants to be clever and use a word that has nothing to do with racism, even though it was likely intended with racist overtones, so what? That makes that person an asshat. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, you don’t negotiate with asshats.
Are we supposed to ban every word that begins with nigg-? Like this marvelous word:
Main Entry: nig·gle
Pronunciation: \?ni-g?l\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): nig·gled; nig·gling \-g(?-)li?\
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: circa 1616
intransitive verb 1 a : trifle b : to spend too much effort on minor details
2 : to find fault constantly in a petty way : carp
3 : gnaw
transitive verb : to give stingily or in tiny portions
Now tell me “niggle” isn’t the best new word I’ve heard today? Virginia Woolf knows what I’m talkin’ ’bout:
“She haggles, she niggles, she wears out our patience with her repetitions and her prolixities.” –The Second Reader
Hott. I love words. And grammar. And spelling. Almost as much as bacon. ALMOST.
You know what else I love? This Dave Chappelle skit:
You lobster babies are just niggling about the niggardly use of niggardly. Now share your damned tacos!
This oxymoron sign is just racist.
Bush put our country and the world in a global economic recession -not Obama. People quickly forget about the war, the housing crash and the Wall Street criminals. ‘Petty in spending’ or ‘stingy’ is what this country needs. This oxymoron sign is just racist.
What points the finger at the owner is the refusal to take it down. If it was spray painted all over their house would it be “freedom of speech” still? hmmm don’t think so.
let me add a couple things here and a thought:
first, the sign is already down. it was put up in the night and taken down the next day.
second, it wasn’t put up by the restaurant owners (who had already closed down anyway). they don’t like obama, but they didn’t much appreciate the sign either since they got associated with it.
ok, some thoughts:
first, i think the use of niggardly in this day and age is rarely appropriate. the word itself is completely benign, but it’s a rather obscure word and i think it’s pretty clear that it’s only used here because it’s so close to the n-word, and yet it gives the sign-writer deniability. i think this is, in fact, obvious when you realize that “niggardly” means “stingy with money” and, if there’s one thing obama has not been in the past few weeks, it’s stingy with money.
second, put aside for a second that it was put up without the knowledge of the owner of the restaurant or the landowner (some guy in california who hasn’t returned calls for comment); it’s private speech on private land — this is the very definition of free speech. you can sit in your la-z-boy all day and scream that obama is the n-word and, provided you aren’t creating a noise nuisance — which is about volume, not content — there’s nothing illegal about it. you can paint it on your wall, your roof, you can fly a plane with a banner (subject to certain faa regs that do not and cannot regulate content). free speech is a beautiful thing. it allows all over us to say our little pieces here without jackbooted government thugs kicking down our doors or us becoming desaparecidos. angry lobster lady — or whatever her moniker du jour is — can make fun of tea partiers, and they can cluck back with pitying eyes and the knowledge that she’s going to H-E-double hockey sticks.
just because we disagree with someone’s opinions, doesn’t mean they should be shut up. maybe it means WE’RE wrong. maybe we should think about what they’re saying, instead of blinding retreating back to our little echo chamber on the internet.
especially the part about angry lobster face. she’s definitely going down.
Your comment, toots, was a roller-coaster of emotion for me. I went from “YES!” to “Wait..huh?” Help me understand!
I fully co-sign ” the use of niggardly in this day and age is rarely appropriate. The word itself is completely benign, but it’s a rather obscure word and i think it’s pretty clear that it’s only used here because it’s so close to the n-word.”
Yes. That’s why I voted “I avoid it – it sounds racist.” Not because I don’t know what it means (8th grade vocab lessons FTW!) but because so many OTHER people don’t know what it means. It invites ill will and I just don’t see the point in using a word that has the potential to hurt or offend those who may mishear me or are part of the majority who don’t seem to know what the word means.
That said, I’m confused by the second half of your comment. Maybe I’m misunderstanding YOUR point in the second half of your comment, but it seems to me like you think ABL went off on a rant against this sign, esp. with this line:
“just because we disagree with someone’s opinions, doesn’t mean they should be shut up. maybe it means WE’RE wrong. maybe we should think about what they’re saying, instead of blinding retreating back to our little echo chamber on the internet.” – toots
I don’t think ABL or ALB or ANL- whatever! – is saying anything against free speech. If anything, she’s decrying the fact that people aren’t familiar with it and are ascribing a racist connotation to it when it is actually bigotry-free.
In her own words:
If some racist dumbfuck wants to be clever and use a word that has nothing to do with racism, even though it was likely intended with racist overtones, so what? That makes that person an asshat. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, you don’t negotiate with asshats.
I am actually impressed an Obama hater knew the word niggardly. I mean, have you seen the tea party signs? And then were clever enough to use it in a psudo-but-not-directly racist way.
But once again they are being hypocritical and getting their facts wrong–you can’t yell at Obama for being a socialist and complain about the bailout money he was giving to everyone, and then claim he’s niggardly. He’s not the one hurting small businesses. Sigh.
The other side will never get it right. But at least one of them has studied for/is studying for the SATs, so maybe they’ll get educated eventually…
Except obviously, he *didn’t* know the word. I mean he’d *heard* it sure, but if he knew what it meant he’d have used it *correctly*. It was just a “see, y’all, I can’t be racist cuz I know these fancy words, snicker, snicker” sign. But, whatevs. Every man woman and child in this Great Nation of ours has a constitutional right to be an idiot and to reap the fruit of their idiocy. That’s what the internet is all about, folks: The Idiot Reaper.
I thought it was for pron :-P
But yes, you have an excellent point Ms. Barnhill…