A Dictionary of Cont..

the speaker needs no introduction, for the hackneyed
phrase is usually the prelude to a. long
and dreary recitation of the feeble accomplishments
and obscure honors of some unknown
mediocrity palmed off on the listeners by a
desperate program committee.
negatives. See the individual negative word:;.
neglect. This verb may be followed by an infinitive,
as in he neglected to wrap it. It ma:y also
be followed by the -ing form of a verb, as in
he neglected wrapping it, but the infinitive is
generally preferred.
neglect and negligence imply carelessness, failure,
or some important omission in the performance
of one’s duty. Neglect commonly refers to the
act (This slight neglect led to the tragedy),
negligence to the habit or trait of failing to
attend to or perform what is expected Ior required.
When Goneril, in King Lear, orders her
servants to assume a weary negligence in carrying
out her father’s orders, it was the insolence
of habitual disregard which she hoped ,would
provoke the old tyrant to an outburst of which
she could take advantage.
In contexts where neglect and negligence are
interchangeable, neglect is the stronger word.
His death was the result of negligence is not
quite as strongly condemnatory as His death
was the result of neglect.
negligent; negligible. The adjectives negligent and
negligible present, respectively, active and
passive aspects of neglect. Negligent Imeans
neglecting, guilty of or characterized by neglect
(He was habitually negligent of his personal
appearance). Negligible means deserving of or
capable of being neglected or disregarded (The
saving from the long tax form is negligible).
Negress. Although -ess is the regular suffix for
forming distinctly feminine nouns (hostess,
lioness) with no connotation of contempt,
Negress is often used derogatorily and he:nce is
likely to be offensive. So also is Jewess.
Negro; nigger; niga; darky. Negro (the plural
is Negroes) is the proper and, in formal writing,
now the only permissible name for a member of
the Negro race. Even when used as an adjlective
it is capitalized, although white, when u.sed as
an adjective to designate a member of or that
which pertains to the white race, is not. Nigger,
although originally merely a slurred pronunciation
of Negro, is, and has been for centuries,
a contemptuous and offensive term. Fowler’s
statement that the word when “applied to others
than full or partial Negroes, is felt as an insult
by the person described” is puzzling, though his
further assurance that its use “betrays in the
speaker, if not deliberate insolence, at least a
very arrogant inhumanity” is unexceptionable.
Nigru is claimed by many who use it to be
a fully respectful word, merely a pronunciation
of Negro. It is not accepted as such by those
to whom it is applied, who are inclined to
regard it, rather, as an evasive pronunciation of
nigger or at the best a reluctant compromise.
Darky, originally a euphemism and perhaps
kindly intended (All de darkeys am a-weeping,/
315 neither
Massa’s in de cold, cold ground), has today the
double opprobrium of sentimentality and condescension.
It is particularly connected with the
comic stereotype of the American Negro developed
in the minstrel shows and passed on to
vaudeville.
It is plain that it is not the word but the feeling
behind it. There is no word which if spoken
in contempt will not in time express that contempt
and hence give offense. The supreme
illustration--one by which many sociologists
who feel that a new set of euphemisms would
ease many tensions in the world ought to ponder
-is the word slave. Derived from Slav, of
which people many were enslaved by the conquering
Komans, the word has acquired connotations
of servility, timidity, and cowardice
(The doggerel that was produced by the thirdrate
poets who slavishly imitated Pope. This
slavish flattery is disgusting. The coward slave,
we pass him by,/ We dare be poor for a’ that).
Yet slav in Slavic means glory. (See also African,
colored, Caucasian, Creole, European,
mulatto.)
neighborhood. Those British lions, Fowler,
Horwill, and Partridge, unite in roaring at the
American use of in the neighborhood of (The
work will cost in the neighborhood of two
million dollars) for about or nearly. Fowler
calls it “a repulsive combination of polysyllabic
humor and periphrasis.” Partridge feels it to be
“a bad and wholly unnecessary substitute.” And
Horwill notes with alarm that the expression
has caught on in England. In the United States
it is certainly standard, though it does seem
awkward, vague, and unnecessary. See also
vicinage.
neither. This word introduces alternatives and
makes the statement in which it occurs negative
for each of them. It may be used as an adjective,
as in neither man had arrived, or independently
as a pronoun, as in neither had
arrived; or it may be used as a conjunction, as
in these neither laughed nor sang. There may
be more than two alternatives, as in heat, light,
electricity, magnetism . . . are all correlative
. . . neither, taken abstractedly, can be said to
be the essential cause of the others.
When neither is used as an adjective it qualifies
a singular noun and requires a singular
verb, as in neither box has arrived. In any other
construction a singular verb is permissible but
a plural is preferred, as in Thersites’ body is as
good as Ajax, when neither are alive and without
that labor neither reason, art, nor peace,
are possible to man. A singular verb is particularly
objectionable when the last alternative is
you or I, as in neither my dog nor I is for sale.
A plural pronoun may be used to refer to
neither, as in neither of them had their tickets.
At one time neither might be followed by
or or nor. In current English only the form nor
is used after neither. Formerly neither might
follow another negative, as in these will not
move her neither and not sparing neither man,
woman, nor child. This form of the double