Should 'denigrate' be considered an offensive word?

[partialderivative]

Apparently its original meaning is to 'blacken' someone.

I didn't know that until I came across it in an origin of words book.

I shall feel rather uncomfortable using it in the future. However, I may well be a touch too precious about these things

[DropYourSword]

Is it something you foresee saying often??

[partialderivative]

Fair point Sword, I was just surprised by its meaning.

And many words become offensive after quite innocent origins.

I am only interested in others' opinions. I do not hold a strong opinion.

[TheLowKing]

Ooh, definitely. I also try to avoid using the word atrium, which also comes from a Latin word for black.

[NigelMolesworth]

Sorry - pedantry alert. The word atrium comes from the Latin meaning hall and doesn't have anything to do with being black. I think you're thinking of the Latin adjective ater (which goes ater, artra, atrum) which means black. They're not the same word.

[TheLowKing]

Further pedantry. atrium is believed to derive from ater - perhaps due to the heavy use of black paint in atrium frescoes (Barbara Borg A Companion to Roman Art, Wiley 2015), or perhaps, as Plautus (somewhere in Asinaria) claimed, because the walls were blackened by the hearth. Myself, I wonder whether, with only the compluvium and the doorway to the hortus providing natural light, any large atria were in fact rather gloomy, and so earned the soubriquet 'dark room'.

[Preminstreltension]

Why would you avoid using a neutral word which derives from a word for black? Denigrate I can see the issue - and I didn't know that. But atrium? Or is that a Latin scholar joke

Love finding a pedant and a Latin scholar on the same thread btw

[NigelMolesworth]

I knew as soon as I posted that there was a fair chance someone would come along and correct me! In my defence, my degree seems rather a long time ago now...

You'll appreciate my NM name then after my favourite drawing from The Compleet Molesworth of Kennedy taming the gerund!

[NigelMolesworth]

Or rather MN nickname...!

[Lilyargin]

What? This is ridiculous. Do you avoid using the word 'blacken'? Or 'black'? Or 'darken'? FFS! I've worked with people who won't ask for black coffee as it's 'racist'. How idiotic.

[IrenetheQuaint]

That's fascinating LowKing. I had always thought of atria as being light as these days they are, but of course in the days before plate glass and large windows this wouldn't have been the case at all.

[VagueIdeas]

First we'd need to establish whether the idea of "blackening" as a negative concept is rooted in race.

Is it? I genuinely don't know.

[paintandbrush]

Oh for God's sake... it's clearly not a race thing, I'd imagine a little less literal, more like 'blacken someone's good name' etc in origin.

[MrsSteptoe]

NigelMolesworth
My favourite of those illustrations is “Social snobbery. A gerund ‘cuts’ a gerundive”.

[MrsSteptoe]

First we'd need to establish whether the idea of "blackening" as a negative concept is rooted in race.

I don't know either. The negativity - black sheep, blacken someone's name - may be to do with darkness as in day/night, out in the open/concealed, rather than race.

But I think it's also an interesting debate to argue that, whatever the origin, an association between black and negative is now a powerful force in reinforcing negative racial stereotypes. I don't know if I'd argue it on Mumsnet, because an awful lot of posters are better at arguing than I am and I'm not free for the rest of the weekend, but I'd argue it with my DH. (Big fish. Small barrel.)

[cdtaylornats]

There are lots of black things that it may stem from, coal, pitch, night.

The old Scots saying "as black as the earl of hell's waistcoat" just means really dark and is usually used for weather as in

"The thunder clouds came in at 5 and turned the night as black as the earl of hell's waistcoat".

A black sheep is obviously bad because you can't sell the wool.

[JoJoSM2]

I wouldn't use it as it sounds too similar to the you-know-what word. There are plenty of other words to choose from in the English language.

[Foxdale]

cdtaylornats: "A black sheep is obviously bad because you can't sell the wool."

I was in a carpet store and they had real sheepskin rugs for sale. There were some beautiful natural black wool ones and they were marked up as being more expensive than the white ones. When I asked why, I was told that they flew off the shelves and that customers found them more desirable.

[Newtssuitcase]

The world has gone mad