NIGGER IN THE WOODPILE
Postby Archived Reply » Mon Mar 01, 2004 5:34 am
I remember my dear old politically incorrect mother (1882-1971) saying, when she thought there was a shady deal going up, or anything of that nature, "There's a nigger in the woodpile there." In other instances she would say "There's something rotten in Denmark" which conveyed the same scepticism (I know, it's a variant of skepticism). I could find no mention anywhere on the net (perhaps I didn't pursue it long enough) of the "nigger in the woodpile," but the Denmark phrase is taken from Shakespeare's Hamlet "There is something rotten in the state of Denmark." It seems I also remember, but not clearly, that "there's a nigger in the woodpile" referred to a husband getting a little help with his husbandly duties. Please don't quote me on that--I may have been mistaken there. At any rate, it really had nothing to do with blacks as a race, though today one would not use such a phrase.