Dear all
This is a curious
item, scanned from Bulldog : Paper of the
Young National Front (Teddington: YNF Secretariat, 1978-1984).
With a racist smirk, it implies that ‘Nig-Nog’ was a different term in the early 1930s, but was
it aimed at children? I can’t think that an adult would’ve
worn such a badge then. Perhaps it was a comic strip or a children’s
commercial radio character? The Northern
Echo (Durham)
started in 1870.
The OED suggests two
definitions:
A new or unskilled recruit; a novice; a foolish or naive person. Cf. NING-NONG
n.
1953 Punch 9 Dec.
692/3 All must be represented on a strict basis of proportion of
the number of citizens for whom they cater: Football-pool promoters (six
representatives)..erks, nig-nogs, [etc.]. 1962
A. WESKER
Chips with Everything
I.
iii. 17 A straight line, you heaving nig-nogs, a straight line.
1967 Times 30 Nov. 10/8 ‘Nig-nog’
was used on the railways and elsewhere long before coloured immigrants appeared...
It is usually taken as a mildly contemptuous but good-humoured name for an
unskilled man or novice.
A black or dark-skinned person. Also attrib.
or as adj.
1959 M. PUGH
Chancer
85 First lot, and look lively. Lot
of nig-nogs off the trees. 1971
J. GARDNER
Every Night's Bullfight
xiii. 405 I'm talking about you and your precious Juliet, your
beloved Carol bloody Evans that nig-nog tart. 1974
Times
14 Feb. 16/8 I'm not going to vote until they get me a house and
get rid of the nignogs. 1989
M. WIGGINS
John Dollar
(1990) i. 32 We had them in the Ganges
I remember. Swam right up and rubbed against the nig-nogs at their baths.
1997
C. SHIELDS
Larry's Party
53 He rattles on about welfare bums, and sometimes refers to
blacks as nig-nogs.
With regards
Andy Simons
Modern British
Collections/Social History
The British Library