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Last updated on August 6th, 2017 at 05:41 am
Media Watch catches Alan Jones:
“Now I’m going to check this today with Mal Brough because I think the Commonwealth is a bit of a nigger in the woodpile here.” – 2GB, Alan Jones Show, 22nd February, 2007
Wicked Alan! Media Watch host Monica Attard wasn’t pleased:
A few years ago ABC Newsradio listeners were appalled when presenter David Lord used the same expression – a nigger in the woodpile.
He had to apologise.
But Alan Jones has his own set of standards.
And Media Watch has its own standards, too. See, it’s bad when conservative Jones or crusty old sports presenter Lord use the n-word, as the Newsradio host did in 2002. But Attard failed to mention a more recent case of n-word deployment:
An ABC listener complained that Margot Kingston used the term “nigger in the woodpile” on Late Night Live, and that Philip Adamshad appeared to be amused by this incident. The ABC agreed that the use of this term transgressed the ABC’s Code of Practice.
No demand from Media Watch that lefties Phil and Margo apologise following their 2003 n-word moment. In fact, then-Media Watch executive producer Peter McEvoy actually defended them:
Media Watch is a program about the media and journalism that promotes a number of principles, including free speech. The phrase “nigger in the woodpile” is a colloquialism, which means a hidden or unacknowledged problem. Some people may feel it’s in bad taste, but we wouldn’t pick up someone for using the term in context.
I’d love to know what he meant by “in context”. Media Watch has form when it comes to different rulings for identical crimes; take this case, also from 2003, in which conservative columnist Miranda Devine was criticised for describing people (terrorists, in fact) as “cockroaches”. Media Watchwas shocked by Miranda’s insensitivity. But just a few years earlier, and to bring this item to a neat circular conclusion, Media Watch itself had described people as cockroaches.
Among the so-described was … Alan Jones.
- The communards at the ABC should have thought twice about ‘Media Watch’. No programme on the national broadcaster more transparently exposes Auntie’s capture by the far left. Or are they so purblind, so bloody self-infatuated that they are not even aware of the almost comic schizophrenia that afflicts the show.
How much bloody longer should the poor bloody Australian taxpayer be expected to shell out for the bloody progressive pulpit that used to be the Australian Broadcasting Commission?
- Just add people who say “nigger in the woodpile” to all those other things we have to fear and reject if we are ever to become enlightened lefties.
see Mark Steyn
- I never thought it was a common word used in Australia. I never heard it, but perhaps my family moved in polite circles.
However, the woodpile one is familiar because it is an expression. Like snake in the grass, Johnny come lately, etc.
I have a golliwog. Now, these are not politically correct, you can’t call them golliwogs. Enid Blighton’s books have been destroyed by being PC-ified.
I used to hate watching the Black and White Minstrel Show because they were so obviously white men painted black, and not very well, either.
- I’m wary of saying it because I know it can offend, but I never knew that until recently, it just wasn’t a word that was used.
Some people may have called Aboriginal Australians that, but really, I’ve only recently heard it used for them – and anyway, the pedant in me says that it’s incorrect. It comes from negro, Australian Aborigines are not negroid. Well, I don’t think so. (I might be old and Leaky, but I’m not an anthropologist.)
- Help a somewhat puzzled American here. I assume from what I’ve read that the term means basically the same in both countries?????Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 04 24 at 08:41 AM • permalink
- I was clearly a term used in Australia in years gone by. I can clearly remember “Nigger Boy” licorice show bags at the Syney Easter Show in the early 1960s. I used the word myself as a descriptor until someone told me that it was offensive to some.
As I recall, the licorice brand was changed to “Big Boy” or some such.
- As I said, I understand it comes from “negro” or “negroid” which is the race. I don’t know when it became an offensive word.
OK Old Tanker.Aboriginal people use a variety of terms to identify ourselves such as Mulba, Koori, Murri, Nunga, Pallawah and Wyba. All these terms are commonly used to describe the diversity words to describe Aboriginal peoples of eastern coast of Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.
Derogatory words for Aborigines are: coon, boong – I’d never heard “nigger” used until very recently. You’d never use the former in ‘polite’ or PC circles, either. I’m sure there’s more but I can’t remember them. Like asians have been referred to as slopes, italians are dings or daigos (but you can use ding in a friendly way), aussies are skips (can be used either way).
There’s a famous grandstand in Toowoomba (see link below) named after a sportsman, it was his nickname, he was white with snow white hair. And Aussies tend to use opposites for nicknames, lofty for a short person, blue for a redhead, curly for a bald bloke, you get my drift.
- #1 – Who’d buy it?
A “n-” is an expresssion for an abnormality in a piece of wood, a knot or similar, that would cause an axe to kick back or otherwise behave in an erratic way. Nothing to do with people.
Attard was interviewed today about Yeltsin and she had to pronounce the Russian names with such exaggeration – it was comedic.
Monica hold the distinction of being the only foreign correspondent booted out of Russia for being too ugly for the locals to bear.Posted by boxofmatches on 2007 04 24 at 09:03 AM • permalink
- Did anyone see Wayne Swan on Lateline? Labor really is creating a big hole for itself with its climate change push. Swan really discredited himself by continuously quoting the Stern Report, calling Stern himself ‘non-partisan’ and saying that his report is based on science.Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 04 24 at 09:09 AM • permalink
- Thanks all.
FWIW, I had been taught that the Australian Aborigines—as far as one can differentiate race amongst homo sapiens (yet another piece of Science that has since been disproved) the Aboriginals were of Caucasian decent.So I guess offensive terms are not offensive if they come from the mouths of the correct people, i.e. well meaning lefties.
- #8 Texas Bob
Yeah. I once got blasted for referring to a fellow solder of Vietnamese decent as “oriental”. She claimed it was the equivalent of the “n” word. She then proceeded to call me a “rough neck”. I quietly pulled her aside and informed her that the term she was searching for was “redneck”.
“It’s an oriental! It’s an oriental!” Nope, just doesn’t have the same ring, however I doubt I’ll see “Murder on the Nigger Express”.
(I do find ‘chinaman’ slightly offensive, however it’s usually used in ignorance.)
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 04 24 at 09:54 AM • permalink
- Nice gotcha.
Well done.
o/t but if one more stupid Pommy bastard says “Happy Anzac Day!” to me, I’m going to re-enact the Battle of the Somme from the Prussian perspective.
In fairness, I can’t think of any other salutation – nor could the RSL officers I spoke to this afternoon. I do wish they’d come up with something.
- O/T
Today, 25th April, we commemorate ANZAC Day in Austrlaia, New Zealand, and in Turkey, at Gallipoli.
Lest we forget.
****
Scroll down to the last letter from Colin Berry. He suggests we need a commemoration for
those who refused to participate in the carnage – often at great personal cost.
Today is NOT the day.
- #34 There already is such a commemoration—the White Feather.
- Jack Lacton—my SF novels are ‘based on science.’ Doesn’t mean I’ll be running weekend cruises to 61 Cygni anytime soon…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 04 24 at 10:47 AM • permalink
- “N in the woodpile” sounds like a malapropism of “N in the woodshed,” an old Southern (U.S.) expression to describe Caucasian parents bearing a not-so-Caucasian child. “Must have been a…” is how it begins, alluding to a particularly frowned-upon form of adultery.
The last time I heard a reference to this was in a trailer for an action movie some years ago. The story had a black character with an Italian surname. When people he was introduced to gave him funny looks, his running joke was to reply, “Must have been a Wop in the woodshed!”
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2007 04 24 at 10:50 AM • permalink
- The British were probably the first to use the term “nigger”, and they weren’t discriminating. It’s what British sailors called Pacific islanders as well as Africans, and anyone with a dark skin. It’s an Anglicization of the Spanish word “negro”, meaning black. In the past two or three centuries it’s been particularly applied to African-Americans. In the United States, white people don’t use it unless they want to start a fight. These days, among us, it’s a social offense, akin to using the word “fuck”. [/pedant]
Also in the United States, “nigger in the woodpile” means someone in your ancestry was passing for white.
- rbj1
Just to be even-handed, here is an alternate meaning to “White Feather”. Some of the details in the article need to be taken with a grain of salt.Cheers
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 04 24 at 11:32 AM • permalink
- What I want to know is why the brave performing artists at Yale didn’t stand up for their artistic freedom and just go ahead and use any sword they wanted? Isn’t it actors and artists who are always bragging how brave they are? They seem to be very good at fighting against non-existent, strawman threats but when confronted with actual threats (Islamic violence, over-sensitive administrators) they simply fold like a house of cards. Should we really rely on them to boldly protect our freedoms?
He had to apologise.
Wow, do you know what would happen to a (non-black) public person who said that here in the land of Constitutionally protected free speech??! We’re talkin’ Don Imus cubed.
When I was a kid, we were taught that there were three races: Negroid (black Africans), Oriental (Japanese, Chinese, Korean etc) and Occidental (everybody else). I don’t recall exactly when “Oriental” fell from favor, but IMO the PC “Asian” doesn’t really cut it for those former Orientals since Indians, Arabs and Indonesians, among others, are Asians as well. TBob, when you quietly pulled your fellow soldier aside, you should have mentioned some of the other descriptive terms you could have used instead.
People, like I, whose southern ancestors have been in this country since its infancy no doubt have all kinds of stuff buried in their woodpiles.
Congratulations, fellow commenters, not an “N-word” among you. Anybody remember the original “eenie meenie minee moe”?
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 04 24 at 12:39 PM • permalink
- How about “wigger in the nudepile”? Which is how Eminem got his job with Dre and Snoop.Posted by Jim Treacher on 2007 04 24 at 02:08 PM • permalink
- yojimbo
Gee thanks
You are welcome my friend. I found that page strictly for edification. I can honestly say, I’ve never used any of them…had a few used toward me, though.
I found that I could bring about enough havoc by using the old tried and true, you stupid bastard or you stupid bitch..:). Well, unless one considers it a slur, when I quote say an andycanuck or a Wimpy Canadian.
PETA is filled with plenty of each of the old tried and true.
- #39 RebeccaH:
You are correct. Ironically, the first recorded use of the phrase was in opposition to the racist “one drop of blood” rule that disenfranchised anyone of mixed race, no matter how many generations removed. A state legislator speaking in opposition warned that this is what you would find upon close inspection of many family trees. The number of families claiming descent from Mrs. John Rolfe (Pocahontas) should have been enough warning.
- #44: “Anybody remember the original “eenie meenie minee moe”?”
You mean, “Eenie, meenie, minee, moe, Catch a tiger by the toe, If he hollers, let him go, Eenie, meenie, minee, moe”?
Though I always thought that if I caught a tiger by the toe, he wouldn’t be the one hollering.
Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2007 04 24 at 04:11 PM • permalink
- This whole thread stikes me as pretty niggardly.Posted by Bruce Lagasse on 2007 04 24 at 04:40 PM • permalink
- The PC Nazis failed to have the name of Coon cheese changed a few years ago.Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2007 04 24 at 04:55 PM • permalink
- There used to be a quaint phrase for geodes, a few years ago, as I remember.Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 04 24 at 05:13 PM • permalink
- PC has ruined language. WS Gilbert would be pilloried these days:
THE THREE KINGS OF CHICKERABOO.
There were three niggers of Chickeraboo—
Pacifico, Bang-Bang, Popchop—who
Exclaimed, one terribly sultry day,
“Oh, let’s be kings in a humble way.”The first was a highly-accomplished
“bones,”
The next elicited banjo tones,
The third was a quiet, retiring chap,
Who danced an excellent break-down
“flap.”“We niggers,” said they, “have formed a
plan
By which, whenever we like, we can
Extemporize islands near the beach,
And then we’ll collar an island each.From the Bab Ballads – and so on for several verses.
What do US light opera companies censor “…and the niggers they’ll be bleaching bye-and-bye..” to these days?
Posted by walterplinge on 2007 04 24 at 05:55 PM • permalink
- I was on the NSW mid-north coast a few years back on vacation and there were a few people fishing from a breakwater, with a couple of old ladies sitting on a wall above them at the top. One guy caught something, pulled the hook out of the mouth of the fish, and proceeded to yank its head backward. I had noticed over the past few days that just about everyone I saw fishing would do the same thing. I asked one of the old ladies at the top what purpose that served, and she said something about “bleeding”, dark meat, and “nigger”. Can anyone shed any light on what it all means?
The odd part was that I myself have dark skin, and had she said it in a matter-of-fact way. She didn’t seem hostile at all toward me, so I didn’t think anything of her mention of the word. I sure would like to know what is up with that bleeding and dark meat thing tho. 🙂
Posted by Bashir Gemayel on 2007 04 24 at 06:29 PM • permalink
- #58
And rightly so. Coon was the family name, I think it’s Dutch.Stephen Hagan is the idiot in Toowoomba who battles for people not to call cheese names and to get the grandstand name changed. Nothing better for him to do, like concern himself with substance, child and other abuse in aboriginal communities.
Hagan is an idiot. He’s even gone to the Hague!
- #61 Bashir, they’re probably talking about the fish. Blackfish used to be called niggerfish until it became unpc to do.Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 04 24 at 07:44 PM • permalink
- #63 Thankyou, graboy, I knew there was also another name for the fish. 🙂Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 04 24 at 07:46 PM • permalink
- #66
ISP Service upgrade?Yeah, they finally got it right, and I’m back on the air. I now have unlimited downloads, which I should have had all the time as a fellow Boom-er pointed out to me. (Just because we are Boom-ers, we SHOULD have unlimited downloads!)
The ISP stuffed up anddisconnectedcancelled my service for non-payment… WTF? I get PAYROLL DEDUCTIONS!!
- And Kerry-Ann Kennerley is a nong.
Chatting with someone (missed his name, not really watching…) re: ANZAC Day and the marches and how they’ve changed over the years remark was made of how, even though servicemen from the great wars numbers are diminishing, the marches are getting bigger each year. They compared 1975 to 2005 marches. He said that, of course, there were no Gallipoli veterans left now.
She said “Makes you want to ask ‘Where have they gone?’”OK. She is an idiot.
- Congrats Tim:
Let’s hope the “perfect gotcha” can stir up a “perfect storm”.
Posted by Paul Wright on 2007 04 24 at 08:58 PM • permalink
- Bonmot, Nigger Brown was a white man.
JOHN TAYLOR: His real name was Edward Stanley Brown, and in Toowoomba he was admired for playing in the 1921 Kangaroos rugby league side. He was better known by his nick-name, “Nigger”, which apparently he got as a child because he had fair skin and blonde hair. And in the late 1960s, a grandstand at Toowoomba’s Athletic Oval was named in his honour, the E.S. Nigger-Brown Stand.
See my link above at #21.
- Some may have seen the ABC TV Curtin on Sunday today we can read the Brisbane Times Curtin
“However, though it has been glossed over or suppressed by generations of historians, the wartime performance of the Curtin government – which came to power in October 1941, a few weeks before Pearl Harbour – was in many ways disgraceful.”
“Ward (who saw himself as a potential party leader with Curtin out of the way – he nominated for the leadership in 1958 and for the deputy leadership several times, the last time in 1960) was pushing Curtin’s psychological buttons to cause him maximum distress and damage. Some who knew the two men have described Ward’s hatred of Curtin as pathological.”
Posted by stackja1945 on 2007 04 24 at 09:00 PM • permalink
- A “n-” is an expression for an abnormality in a piece of wood, a knot or similar, that would cause an axe to kick back or otherwise behave in an erratic way. Nothing to do with people.
I wonder about that derivation. I always imagined the ‘hidden problem’ meaning was much more literal and colorful. Negroes would be employed to cut wood etc for a feed. Some would bring other family who would hide [in the woodpile] until all the work was over.
Doesn’t that make sense? It also is a COMPLIMENT to the intelligence and shrewdness of the former slaves.
Anyway, I think it’s a black day when the PC crowd blacken anyone who puts them in a black mood by using harmless old non-PC termsthey choose to blackball.
Nothing in language it entirely black or white, ‘but thinking makes it so’ as Shakespeare said.The Abos use ‘Abos’ to describe themselves anyway.
- In Huckleberry Finn, both Huck and the escaped slave, Jim, use the word nigger all the time in reference to Negros. I was never quite sure if Twain meant this to convey a sense of low self esteem amongst the slaves or if the term was simply in common usage.
BTW, if memory serves, the four human races are (in PC alphabetical order) Australoid, Caucasian, Mongoloid and Negroid. Australian Aborigines belong to the first. I suppose some idiots have called them niggers at some point, but I never heard the term. Plenty of other racist stuff, of course.
Anyone remember that Goodies episode when they went to South Africa? I always thought the image of a piano with all the black keys down one end and the white keys at the other the perfect metaphor for apartheid.
- In my sizable collection of Americana, I have a sub-collection of black Americana. My prize in the latter are a menu and straw holder from the original Coon Chicken Inn, locations in Seattle, Portland OR and Salt Lake City until the late 1950’s. No doubt any of you born after the 60’s can’t even imagine such a thing.Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 04 24 at 10:15 PM • permalink
- Question from job interviewer: “So, what kind of internet experience do you have?”
Me: “Um….”
(Hey folks, I just live here, I don’t make the rules…)
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 04 24 at 10:15 PM • permalink
- 63-64, Hey all, thanks for the info. I looked up a picture of a Luderick, and sure enough, that was the nig…, er, fish, all them people were catching. 😀Posted by Bashir Gemayel on 2007 04 24 at 10:24 PM • permalink
- #81
In my sizable collection of Americana, I have a sub-collection of black Americana. My prize in the latter are a menu and straw holder from the original Coon Chicken Inn, locations in Seattle, Portland OR and Salt Lake City until the late 1950’s. No doubt any of you born after the 60’s can’t even imagine such a thing.
Err… Actually, we can.
Meet an Aussie favourite: Coon Cheese.
- Yeah, but Dan, it’s called Coon Cheese because the family who established the company were named Coon and were, I think, Dutch. It wasn’t any reference to a racist term.
I wish people would stop saying this, it’s ridiculous. Ever since Michael Hagan “Aboriginal Activist against calling things names” began his stupid crusade, this has been brought up.
- Most of the ganster wannabes who are usually banned from my place of work, all refer to themselves as niggers. They are of course, aboriginal, who’s original descendants came across from Northern India during the last major ice age and having no connection to African Americans.
Please note I mean no offense and have tried to be as politically correct as I can when dealing with the subject of the last ice age. I wish not to offend those who may feel that my mentioning of this rather large climate change period infringes on their right to believe that no such occurrances have taken place, for to believe otherwise would cast a shadow of doubt over the whole Climate Change is cause by man bullshit! Oh, and I also appologise for saying the nigger word. Oops, shit! Did it again.
o/t A channel nine reporter was saying that Gallipoli was the first engagement for Australian troops, not as troops from NSW, QLD, SA, TAS or WA. According to the reference material I have on the Boer War (1899-1902) the original troops were from the separate colonies , but after 1901, Australian Commonwealth Contingents were formed. This is a trifle of a complaint, but as we use ANZAC day to commemorate all those who fought for Australia, maybe these journos show freshen up on their history books somewhat.
- Anyone remember Darkie Toothpaste with the image of the smiling minstrel type negro on the tube? Since changed to Darlie Toothpaste. I remember this was quite popular in Hong Kong.
And as for fish – Luderick is also called blackfish and hence the nickname nigger, not niggerfish.
As opposed to Mulloway, AKA Jewfish or Jewies. (or when a certain size, soapy jews).
- Oh, and growing up on the NSW north coast aborigines were known as boongs, coons or kooris, (and sometimes spooks) all of which were considered offensive. Nowadays koori is not only acceptable but pretty much encouraged.
Nigger was never used in my neck of the woods – just didn’t apply to ‘our’ blacks.
- #30 #79
There was a fascinating article in the June 2002 edition of Quadrant (not online) co-written by Keith Windschuttle that discussed a trihybrid theory on Aboriginal origins, meaning they had arrived in three major waves of migration.First wave was the Negritos originally derived from African pygmies (yes, you read that right, there are even pictures in the article of the last remaining four-and-a-half foot tall descendants who lived in northern Qld until the 1950s or 60s when they kind of “bred out” to a normal height) who also still live in the Andaman Islands and various remote SE Asian highlands.
Second wave was the Murrayians who are related to the early Japanese people, the Ainu, of Hokkaido and Sakhalin Island.
Third wave was the Carpentarians who seem most similar to the Vedda people of Sri Lanka.
The Aboriginal political movement doesn’t like this theory because they like to claim they are the single original owners of the continent and don’t want a hierarchy of claims undermining the movement.
- #89 Barrie, do I look like a nerd? (kidding)
I don’t know. Shop around, compare prices and deals, think about what you want to do, if you only use it for a few hours once a week it’s pointless to pay for more than you use, but if you don’t have a life, like me, one where you get unlimited downloads included is good. However, having said that, I have heard of people getting accounts from ISPs for $200 and $300, when they have already paid for an ‘unlimited’ service.
Beware!
- I remember being told that the term “nigger in the woodpile” originated during the American Civil War, when slaves escaping to the north would sometimes be found hiding in the woodpiles behind homes before they managed to connect with the Underground Railroad.
As for Media Watch, surely we’ve given up expecting the ABC to be in any way unbiased?
- #95 Pogria, agreed.
At least for North Coast NSW, when I was growing up in the 40s nigger was a totally acceptable word for anything black but I can’t recall it being applied to aborigines. The most popular descriptor for them was “blacks” or “blackfellers”
I was taught to catch “blackfish” or “niggers” when I was about 7. I didn’t realise that they should be called luderick until in was well into my twenties.
And for those wondering whether the nigger is found in the woodpile or the woodshed; in Oz we rarely kept our firewood in a shed and the woodpile was usually outside the house somewhere near the kitchen.
- Speaking of woodpiles, is it still OK to call the reptile that often dwelt in such places a black snake?
Maybe Pseudechis porphyriacus is now preferred on their ABC.
- #92 kae After being in Japan I’ve realised how crap Australian ISPs are. I’m using 100Mbps optical fibre and have at times downloaded at 2 megabytes per second. The cost? About $50 a month, and that’s just because I’m in a new apartment block – once more people move in and subscribe it’ll drop to $30.Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 04 25 at 08:37 AM • permalink
- Dambusters remake and the fate of Nigger the dog.Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 04 25 at 08:41 AM • permalink
- #82, You said it Andrea. I’m getting paranoid just READING these posts. Being a white boy from Texas in the US Army, I’m a permanent member of the usual suspects gang. I had to marry a black woman just to fight off the stigma and named my children Jesse, Martin and Luther. I’ve tried, but failed to cultivate an afro and have 30 semester hours of ebonics under my belt. I drive a 73’ gold Cadilac, smoke Newports and drink malt liquor, but do you think I’m cut any slack? I’m still just a honky cracker redneck from Texas.
/utter bullshit
- 82: I would have shown the Zulu spear as spoils from your Internet conquests.
On a more serious note, I sincerely hope that your job hunt is going well, and you make more money than before.
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperPosted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 04 25 at 10:13 AM • permalink
- Texas Bob:
I feel your pain! When I tell people I’m from Florida, they edge away. Well, that could be due to the bloody axe I carry around.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 04 25 at 12:29 PM • permalink
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Jones the next day wondered why MW are critical of conservatives who may put a foot wrong yet feel free to vilify a man simply because he’s a conservative. Fair question.
The ABC totally oozes bias and unscrupulous dishonesty in it’s coverage of anything political.
Privatise the ABC now.