- Nigger in the woodpile
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A parody, titled "The Nigger in the Woodpile", of Republican efforts to play down the antislavery plank in their 1860 platform.
A nigger in the woodpile (or fence) is an English figure of speech formerly commonly used in the United States and elsewhere. It means "some fact of considerable importance that is not disclosed – something suspicious or wrong".
Contents
Origin
Both the 'fence' and 'woodpile' variants developed about the same time in the period of 1840–50 when the Underground Railroad was flourishing. The evidence is slight, but it is presumed that they were derived from actual instances of the concealment of fugitive slaves in their flight north under piles of firewood or within hiding places in stone walls.[1] Another possible origin, comes from the practice of transporting pulpwood on special rail road cars. In the era of slavery, the pulpwood cars were built with an outer frame with the wood being stacked inside in moderately neat rows and stacks. However, given the nature of the cars, it was possible to smuggle persons in the pile itself; possibly giving rise to the term.
Film
An American film comedy entitled A Nigger in the woodpile was released in 1904.[2]
In You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939), W. C. Fields remarks that there's "evidently a Ubangi in the fuel supply." He makes a similar comment in My Little Chickadee (1940), substituting "Ethiopian" for "Ubangi."
In Not So Dumb (1930), actress Marion Davies' dim-bulb character says, "I knew there was a woodpile in the nigger."
In Porky's Railroad (1937), a train quickly passes a pile of wood, thus blowing away all the wood and revealing a black man with large white eyes.
Literature
In Agatha Christie's They Do It with Mirrors, Inspector Curry asks the phrase of Miss Marple in relation to Gina's white GI husband, Wally. The phrase is uttered by Justice Wargrave in And Then There Were None. In Christie's Dumb Witness (copyright 1937), the phrase is the title of Chapter 18 and it is uttered by Hercule Poirot who also asks if it is a "saying." It is also present in Christie's After the Funeral, said by George Crossfield to Poirot in reference to a Mr. Entwhistle.
Can be found in W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge on p. 305 when Gray is talking to author about a new business deal. "As soon as I get to New York I'll fly down to Texas to give it the once over, and you bet I'll keep my eyes peeled for a nigger in the woodpile before I cough up any of Isabel's dough."
In the original version of The Hardy Boys The House on the Cliff, Frank Hardy uses the phrase in chapter 9 in regard to a suspicious circumstance.
Used in some Erle Stanley Gardner mystery novels.
Used in Paul de Kruif's "Microbe Hunters," original copyright 1926, in the chapter on Leeuwenhoek.
Scientific Literature
In the first footnote of a 1956 article in the Journal of Symbolic Logic, Robin Gandy notes that Alan Turing always spoke of the axiom of extensionality as being 'the nigger in the woodpile'.[3]
Computer scientist E. W. Dijkstra also used the phrase in a paper, where he wrote, "A main nigger in the woodpile is the invention —in Europe— and the subsequent proliferation —primarily in the USA— of the term 'software engineering'."[4]
From the November 1939 issue of Birth Control Review (Vol XXIV, No. 1), published by the Birth Control Federation of America, Inc., Robert C. Cook, Editor of the Journal of Heredity, comments in his article "Birth Rates in Fascist Countries" that the Italian people, in not throwing themselves headlong into Mussolini's appeal to increase the birthrate, "...seem very sensibly to have detected an Ethiopian in the woodpile somewhere..."
Recent usage
United Kingdom
In the UK in recent years, the occasional use of this phrase by public figures has normally been followed by an apology.[5][6][7]
- 2007, Bedfordshire County councillor Rhys Goodwin, stepped down as chairman of the environment and economic development committee: "...During a debate on heavy goods vehicle traffic in the county, he wanted to argue that a particular problem in Bedfordshire is the amount of trucks on the roads connected with quarrying. But he used the unfortunate figure of speech before sheepishly rephrasing his point."[8] Goodwin, who was 74 at the time, said: "There was no racist intent at all. For 50 years of my life that was common parlance, with no more a derogatory connotation than the symbol on a jar of marmalade."[9]
- 2008, Lord Dixon Smith, Conservative frontbencher, used the phrase in a debate on the Housing and Regeneration Bill: "Of course, the nigger in the woodpile, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has already pointed out, is that it still incorporates what I call the hangover of the new towns legislation." He immediately apologised to the House. His Lordship, also in his seventies, later commented to journalists that the phrase had been "in common parlance when I was younger".[10]
- 2009, Dick Denby, of Dick Denby Transport uttered this phrase on the BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine show (Tuesday, 1 December) during a discussion on the merits of 83-foot-long (25 m) HGVs. He said that perhaps he should not have used said phrase. Jeremy Vine agreed he should not have used it and later apologised to Radio 2 listeners who might have been offended.
Ireland
In November, 2007, in relation to a debate on the Gaelic Players Association, Fine Gael Senator Paul Coughlan asked "Can the leader kick it into play and give members an update? Who is the nigger in the woodpile?". There was no call for an apology.
Australia
David Lord, an ABC News Radio presenter was forced to apologise after using the expression. On 22 February 2007, Alan Jones, another radio presenter, was heard to use the same phrase.[11] There was no call for an apology.
Footballer agent, Bernie Mandic stated in an interview broadcast on Radio Station SEN 1116 on 29 June 2011 "I know it's politically incorrect, but I could throw a nigger in the woodpile, what about Brisbane?", regarding the possibility of football player Harry Kewell playing in Australia for the A-League.
United States
On September 18, 2009, the Town Board of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, confirmed that Police Chief Lou Corsi used the phrase during a phone conversation with Under Sheriff John Mahan, and that the conversation had been recorded.[12]
On December 6, 2009, Joel Barbee made a reference to it in his cartoon "The Woods Pile".[13]
References
- ^ "Heavens to Betsy" (1955, Harper & Row) by Charles Earle Funk
- ^ IMDb entry
- ^ http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.jsl/1183732302 On the Axiom of Extensionality – Part II
- ^ http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD690.html E.W.Dijkstra Archive: The pragmatic engineer versus the scientific designer
- ^ Insurance boss apologises for racist remark Daily Telegraph, Jan 25, 2007 – phrase used by an executive of Standard Life
- ^ BBC apologises for general's 'racist remark' in radio interview, The Independent, Dec 24, 2005 – phrase used by General Patrick Cordingley
- ^ Gary Younge, Not while racism exists, The Guardian, Jan 7, 2002 – use attributed to Germaine Greer
- ^ "Councillor quits over race clanger", www.bedfordtoday.co.uk, 23 November 2007
- ^ "'Racist' remark gets support", Bedfordshire on Sunday. The "symbol on a jar of marmalade" refers to the golliwog, the long-standing mascot of Robertson jam, which was retired a few years before to the great regret of the older generation
- ^ "Peer's apology over racist phrase"
- ^ Media Watch: Alan Moans (16/04/2007)
- ^ "Police chief caught on tape using slur"
- ^ [1]
- "I Hear America Talking" by Stuart Berg Flexner (Von Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, 1976).
External links
- Racist parody of Republican platform from 1860 Presidential campaign, in Harper's Weekly
- Epistemology of the Woodpile, University of Toronto Quarterly
- History News Network blog post about origins of term
- History News Network blog post about a recent controversy
- Phrase used in 1918 advertisement for Patterson Publishing Company The Rotarian magazine
Categories:- English phrases
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