Mendacious, obsequious, supercilious and niggardly besides

This morning’s Inside Higher Ed informs us that

Lake Superior State University is known for its annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. Now a new site at Wayne State University, Word Warriors, aims to draw attention to “words of style and substance that see far too little use.” Among the first words identified for this list: cahoots, defenestrate, insouciance, mendacious and quixotic.

I’ve read WW's list of underused words, and it’s amazing how many of them apply to our Chancellor:

Borborygmus
Cahoots
Calumny
Charlatan
Churlish
Ersatz
Higgledy-piggledy
Legerdemain
Mendacious
Niggardly
Obfuscation
Obsequious
Preposterous
Quisling
Skullduggery
Supercilious
Sycophant
Unicoid

Heck, that's like half the list right there. I do think that these words are way underused in the case of Chancellor Mathur.

Re the word “niggardly”: it means, of course, stingy, and it has no connection to the “n word.”

Nevertheless, in using this word, one invites trouble. Check out the Wikipedia article regarding controversies surrounding use of "niggardly."

Perhaps the most memorable incident occurred in 1999:

On January 15, 1999, David Howard, a white aide to Anthony A. Williams, the black mayor of Washington, D.C., used the word in reference to a budget. This apparently upset one of his black colleagues (identified by Howard as Marshall Brown), who incorrectly interpreted it as a racial slur and lodged a complaint. As a result, on January 25 Howard tendered his resignation, and Williams accepted it.

However, after pressure from the gay community (of which Howard was a member) an internal review into the matter was brought about, and the mayor offered Howard the chance to return to his position as Office of the Public Advocate on February 4. Howard refused but accepted another position with the mayor instead, insisting that he did not feel victimized by the incident. On the contrary, Howard felt that he had learned from the situation. "I used to think it would be great if we could all be colorblind. That's naive, especially for a white person, because a white person can't afford to be colorblind. They don't have to think about race every day. An African American does."

It has been speculated that this incident inspired Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain.

The Howard incident led to a national debate in the U.S., in the context of racial sensitivity and political correctness, on whether use of the word niggardly should be avoided. Some observers noted however that the "national debate" was made up almost entirely of commentators defending use of the word. As James Poniewozik wrote in Salon, the controversy was "an issue that opinion-makers right, left and center could universally agree on." He wrote that "the defenders of the dictionary" were "legion, and still queued up six abreast."

Julian Bond, then chairman of the NAACP, deplored the offense that had been taken at Howard's use of the word. "You hate to think you have to censor your language to meet other people’s lack of understanding", he said. "David Howard should not have quit. Mayor Williams should bring him back — and order dictionaries issued to all staff who need them."

Bond also said, "Seems to me the mayor has been niggardly in his judgment on the issue. [...] We have a hair-trigger sensibility, and I think that is particularly true of racial minorities."

If you get a chance, check out Stanley Fish's New York Times piece (Sunday) about his all-time favorite movies. An interesting list, including almost enough Billy Wilder.