Wed 12 Sep 2007
I was sat in a sales meeting, much like any other I have been in over the years. I was bored and hungover, which was not a state conducive to producing articulate contributions to the group discussions. One colleague in particular was describing a potential sale, in teeth-achingly minute detail. He began to focus on one prospective client in particular, and who was causing him issues.
“He’s a right nigger in the woodpile…”
I looked up from my doodle of an exploding head and watched him as he looked around the table, in the way that people do when they are looking for reassurance, or confirmation that what they just said was funny.
“You know what I mean.” he continued.
“Err, no, I am afraid I do not.” I interjected. “Firstly, I am not sure you can use the term nigger in polite company, unless you are a rapper, in which case it is actively encouraged. And second of all, I am not sure what a person of Afro-Caribbean descent, hiding behind a load of wood, has to do with anything. Fo shizzle.”
“It’s just a saying.”
“Is it? Is it really? Explain it to me because I have never heard it before.”
Asking someone to explain a metaphor is fun, especially if they don’t really know what they are talking about. After a while he came to the conclusion that it was a metaphor for someone who was trying to spoil things for you, but he could not, despite minutes of trying, tell me why a nigger would want to spoil a woodpile.
“Is this woodpile owned by his slave master?”
“Is the woodpile being used by Clansmen to burn more niggers?”
There were no more racial slurs after that, and he focussed on explaining the sales situations at prospective clients by mocking Gypos and The Gays.
16 Responses to “Sales meeting”
September 12th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Hmm, what it actually means is that a white fella has some hidden black ancestory. AS this was not summat that Mrs Massa would admit to in ye olde days, twas said that there must have been a nigger in the woodpile, as said nigger would need to hide before unleashing his load of love on the white wimmin with a cry of “I’ll shoot jizzle from ma pizzle in your snizzle fo shizzle.”
It’s a shocking phrase and I, for one, am totally disgusted. Up here, we wouldn’t dream of using it, being modern thinking folkd. We much prefer the expression “a touch of the tar brush” when referring to such people.
Which is much nicer, dontcha think.
September 12th, 2007 at 11:22 am
I believe the expression comes from the days of smuggling runaway slaves from the South to the North by hiding them in wagonloads of wood and so forth.
So the expression has come to mean that there is some important fact that has been missed.
If your dopey colleague is using it as an insult then he’s obviously a f*cking dimwit as well as politically incorrect.
I did once without thinking tell a black colleague of mine to play the white man
fortunately he took this in the spirit it was meant offering the opinion he might find this a tad difficult.
September 12th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Mmmm at tricky one.
but a nice put down Angry
September 12th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Well he obviously learned nothing from this years Big Brother.
September 12th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Angelalala, you poor thing, sitting through Big Brother, then actually remembering some of it.
September 12th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
In rap terms What does that mother fucker Father Christmas mean when he says “HO HO HO”. Is he a pimp per chance.
September 12th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I love these people who can’t give a speech, however unimportant, without having to bash at some kind of minority.
It is so easy to feel superior to them, it instantaneously revives self-confidence.
September 12th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
How crude and uncivilized.
Apparently this individual thinks he is being clever by disrespecting those who are “different” than he.
What a pathetic little man.
September 12th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
jeeeeeeeeeeeze
September 12th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Hmmm…so many double standards surrounding that word. It’s seemingly only appropriate in rap videos and Channel 4 (but only some programmes), and not in the boardroom..evidently. It is a rather strange saying, not one I’ve heard before. Anywho, if your interested in the whole N-WORD debate when it’s reversed…
http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2007/06/tokenracism-post.html
September 13th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
My ex-boss used to use this phrase repeatedly. He claimed when challenged that a “nigger” was a insect and that anyone who took offence at the phrase was misinformed.
He would use the phrase to wind people up. Not that he was an idiot or racist in anyway, oh no, God forbid. Of course I NEVER ever heard him using it in the company of any black folk. Presumably, because the explanation of the insect reference would be cut short by a smack in the chops.
September 13th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Keef be talkin’ shite.
And I speak as man who has been tarred with said brush.
Now turn up that nigga boom boom and let’s partay.
September 15th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
[...] am livid - Sales meeting (nominated by [...]
September 16th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
This usage isn’t appropriate, and it’s an expression probably best left well alone, but perhaps worth mentioning that Agatha Christie wrote a book called “Ten Little Niggers” once upon a time, and a very famous book it is too. Interesting how what is deemed acceptable in language changes.
September 21st, 2007 at 11:10 am
Nice. I can’t believe he said it. Wank word bingo with a twist.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:27 pm
What’s wrong with bingo, btw?