It occurred to that there is another N word which, certainly in the 1960s, was considered offensive in this country
Native
The ones who were getting restless
I have had no success in tracing the origins of that phrase, but in my memory it was a common phrase of B movies (the sort which had jungles rather than rain forests), & was usually followed shortly by not shooting until you saw the whites of their eyes
“A member of an indigenous ethnic group. Freq. with a suggestion of inferior status, culture, etc., and hence (esp. in modern usage) considered offensive” as the OED puts it
Fellow students, especially those from Commonwealth countries, used to like to tease us by calling us natives
And indeed I always assumed that was the origin of the word: “A person born in a specified place, region, or country, whether subsequently resident there or not”
Nowadays native does not usually make people flinch – Native American is the term of choice. We refer happily to native species of the non-human kind – though some environmentalists refer to non-native species in terms which would be undoubtedly racist if applied to humans
But imagine my surprise when the OED informed me that the word comes from “post-classical Latin nativus a person born in bondage (frequently in British sources from the late 12th cent.)”
Not so unrelated to the other N word after all
