niger; was RE: Saffron - rejected messages
Jim McKenney (Mon, 31 Oct 2005 17:58:06 PST)

No, Arnold, because it would be spelled Nijer, the way the modern
"sanitized" packaging for niger seed goes.

In some ways things have become ridiculous. I heard the story of a speaker
at a local gardening group who, being of eastern European origin, pronounced
Helleborus niger with the short i sound and the hard g sound. Perfect
textbook Latin, but some hypersensitive soul in the audience took offense.

What ever happened to "it's just a word"?

Jim McKenney