Editing Nigger (section)

===20th-century United States===
A style guide to [[British English]] usage, [[H.W. Fowler]]'s ''[[A Dictionary of Modern English Usage]]'', states in the first edition (1926) that applying the word ''nigger'' to "others than full or partial negroes" is "felt as an insult by the person described, & betrays in the speaker, if not deliberate insolence, at least a very arrogant inhumanity"; but the second edition (1965) states "N. has been described as 'the term that carries with it all the obloquy and contempt and rejection which whites have inflicted on blacks'".<ref>Henry W. Fowler, Ernest Gowers: ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage''. Oxford University Press, 1965. Compare the [https://www.etymonline.com/word/nigger entry "nigger (n.)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210426155516/https://www.etymonline.com/word/nigger |date=April 26, 2021 }}, in: ''Online etymology dictionary''.</ref> The quoted formula goes back to the writings of the American journalist [[Harold R. Isaacs]], who used it in several writings between 1963 and 1975.<ref>Harold R. Isaacs in: ''Encounter'', vol. 21, 1963, p. 9 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=nCsdAQAAMAAJ&q=the%20term%20that%20carries%20with%20it%20all%20the%20obloquy%20and%20contempt%20and%20rejection%20which%20whites%20have%20inflicted%20on%20blacks Google Books]). Compare Harold R. Isaacs: ''Idols of the Tribe: Group Identity and Political Change''. Harvard University Press, 1989, p. 88 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=0Kne87aU7D0C&dq=the+term+that+carries+with+it+all+the+obloquy+and+contempt+and+rejection+which+whites+have+inflicted+on+blacks&pg=PA88 Google Books] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230331170327/https://books.google.com/books?id=0Kne87aU7D0C&dq=the+term+that+carries+with+it+all+the+obloquy+and+contempt+and+rejection+which+whites+have+inflicted+on+blacks&pg=PA88 |date=March 31, 2023 }}).</ref> Black characters in [[Nella Larsen]]'s 1929 novel [[Passing (novel)|''Passing'']] view its use as offensive; one says "I'm really not such an idiot that I don't realize that if a man calls me a nigger, it's his fault the first time, but mine if he has the opportunity to do it again."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sullivan |first=Nell |date=1998 |title=Nella Larsen's Passing and the Fading Subject |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3042239 |journal=African American Review |volume=32 |issue=3 |pages=373–386 |doi=10.2307/3042239 |issn=1062-4783 |jstor=3042239 |access-date=February 6, 2022 |archive-date=February 6, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220206025815/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3042239 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

By the late 1960s, the social change brought about by the [[civil rights movement]] had legitimized the [[identity politics|racial identity]] word ''black'' as mainstream American English usage to denote black-skinned Americans of African ancestry. President [[Thomas Jefferson]] had used this word of his slaves in his ''[[Notes on the State of Virginia]]'' (1785), but "black" had not been widely used until the later 20th century. (See [[Black Pride|black pride]], and, in the context of worldwide anti-colonialism initiatives, ''[[Négritude]]''.)

In the 1980s, the term "[[African American]]" was advanced analogously to such terms as "[[German American]]" and "[[Irish American]]", and was adopted by major media outlets. Moreover, as a [[compound word]], ''African American'' resembles the [[vogue word]] ''Afro-American'', an early-1970s popular usage. Some Black Americans continue to use the word ''nigger'', often spelled as ''[[nigga]]'' and ''niggah'', without irony, either to neutralize the word's impact or as a sign of solidarity.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Allan|first=Keith |author-link=Keith Allan (linguist) |title=The pragmatics of connotation |journal=Journal of Pragmatics |volume=39|issue=6 |date=June 2007 |pages=1047–1057|doi=10.1016/j.pragma.2006.08.004}}</ref>