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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> Not  
> sure why, but there is a crossing of Bryant Creek about a mile from  
> here named Nigger Ford. I have been unable to verify that perhaps it  
> is so-called because a black family lived there. 

'Nigger' is a creole anglicizaton of the Spanish 'negro' or perhaps the 
French 'niger' which both simply mean 'black'.  In the old parlance of the 
South, 
it is not a pejorative word.  A species of pine here is called 'nigger pine" 
because the wood is streaked in black and what is scientifically classified 
as a 
Black Oak is in the vernacular a "nigger oak".  

Knowing that the word has become offensive since the time of the old South, 
most people don't use it.  But it is a bias on your part to think that the 
person who named the crossing 'Nigger Ford' had anything but its color in 
mind.   </HTML>