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Cockney Mispronunciation. The most poignant moment in the book is when the son, a U.S. soldier, learns to his astonishment that "nigger" is not the white folks' private slur but "a Cockney mispronunciation of the German word Neger [Negro] on the part of English sailors in the 17th century." The erudition is from a friendly German philologist who has first explained that his subject is the study of civilized peoples through their languages and literature.