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Chamberlin Rock, named for former university president and geologist Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, was at least once referred to as a "n — — -head" rock in a 1925 Wisconsin State Journal story. University historians have not found any other time that the slur was used.So, a single offensive reference, from nearly one hundred years ago, is enough to force the expensive removal of a university icon, as well as the plaque honoring Chamberlin. More social justice lunacy.
But the Ku Klux Klan was active on campus during that time. And the recent rediscovery of that long-ago news article prompted a reevaluation of an object that not only helped tell the story of the state's geologic history but also served as a daily reminder of a more recent troubling past.
Definitions from The Century Dictionary.
noun: An inferior kind of tobacco pressed in a twisted form.
noun: A rounded boulder or rock; especially, a roundish black rock on the coast of Florida, sometimes covered with only a few inches of water.
noun: Also, applied to boulders of chromite in the region north of Baltimore, Maryland, and generally, among English-speaking peoples, to any tough black rock in loose boulders.
noun: In swampy land, tufts or clumps of sedge and grass growing up stiffly, and somewhat resembling a black head.
noun: A spool or capstan for lifting or hauling, formed on the end of a shaft which is turned by power: so called bocause it is usually black. Also known as a wildcat.
noun In botany:
noun: The cone-flower or black-eyed-Susan, Rudbeckia hirta.
noun: The common greenbrior or catbrior, Smilax rotundifolia.
noun: A towing bitt; an upright timber to which towing hawsers are secured.
noun: A fresh-water mussel, Quadrula ebena, of the Mississippi River, used in the manufacture of pearl buttons. It is rather small with a thick shell and a black or dark brown outer skin.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
noun: archaic A strong black chewing tobacco, usually in twisted plug form; negro head.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
noun: nautical, dated A bollard made from an old cannon.
noun: geology, archaic, colloquial A geode.
noun: A coneflower.
noun: An isolated part of a coral reef.
noun: US, Alaska, dated (Can we clean up(+) this sense?) A tussock (clump of plant material), found on tundra.
Etymologies
Nigger + head: various things were so called because they were thought to resemble a black person's head.
Even squinting there is no way that I can imagine that rock looking like a black person's headYou and me both . . .
According to one tale told by Hesiod, Zeus avenged himself on Prometheus by having him nailed to a mountain in the Caucasus and then sent an eagle to eat his immortal liver, which constantly replenished itself.RC
I am glad to be nearing retirement because otherwise I would have to consider hiring people that will be graduating from these places in the next couple of years.