30 JUNE 1984, Page 20

Nig-nog and nigger

Sir: Before `nig-nog' (Letters, 9 June) was transmogrified into a term restricted to racial abuse, 'nigger' suffered the same fate. The 17th-century English Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia habitually referred to her swarthy and adored husband the Elector Palatine as 'my Nigger Duckling'. My fashionably named nigger-brown school uniform of the 1930s had no more to do with the inhabitants of tropical Africa than my next school's navy-blue outfit had to do with jolly jack tars.

How are we to save the word 'black' from making the same impoverishing progression?

Anne Glyn-Jones

5 Pound Close, Topsham, Exeter, Devon