I would recommend Geoffrey Hughes' "Swearing..A Social History of Foul  
Language, Oaths and Profanity in English."  The so-called N word would have  lost 
its stigma and punch long ago had its use just been allowed to peter  out.  
But, the PC taboo surrounding the word keeps it alive among the group  that uses 
it in revolt to the PC crowd, and, of course, among Black rappers in  
contemporary music who are the primary public uses of the word.
 
By the way, in case you all aren't aware of it, there is a Federal statute  
that outlines the requirements for citizenship.  None of the things  mentioned 
by those who believe slaves, non-citizen soldiers, and Mexican  nationals who 
are in this country legally or illegally makes them American  citizens under 
the law of the land.  You might read the Immigration and Nationality Act of 
1952.
 
J South
 
 
In a message dated 3/13/2009 3:43:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Two  things:

1.
> So does that make illegal aliens
> from Mexico  Americans?
A fair question, I believe. In my view the answer is
* no for  people who break the law to come here over
the course of  months or years, and
* yes for people forced against their will under the  law
to work and live as Americans over the course  of
years or generations.
The Americans who worked with the  likes of Lt. R. E. Lee to build Fort 
Monroe obviously fit with the second,  if you ask me. And if, for 
example, some legally free Norwegian American  had been working there too 
for Lt. Lee, he'd have been not one bit more  American than the enslaved 
Americans were. And though the year is now  2009, we still do not see 
this clearly in our country, it seems to  me.

2. (From Anita Wills in another thread.)
> I told him that I  was writing about Colonial Virginia,
> and used the language from that  period.
Was the word that some call the "n-word" in common use then? (I  call it 
the n-slur.) If so, would you use that word simply because they  used it 
commonly then? If the answer is no, does that mean there are cases  when 
a word's use from former times in fact does not dictate your own use  of 
it? (Full disclosure: I personally hate the words mulatto and quadroon  
and octoroon -- and, for all I know, duodecimoseptaroon, or whatever --  
because race is mainly socially constructed, and to use those words  
seems to me to confer just a bit of legitimacy on the perverted notions  
that race is a good deal more than socially constructed.) (Yes, yes, I  
know -- sometimes you have to use the word from the time because  
denotation and clarity require it. I do see that that's  so.)

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