[Yeti]

Almost certainly he said "negro" with his deep southern accent, which would sound like "NIG-ruh." Similarly, the word "here" would sound like "HEE-uh" and "tomato" would sound like "MAY-tuh" or "duh-MAY-tuh."

As an aside, I believe the slang term "n!gg@r" is actually a bastardization of "negro," evolved over time. I don't think it was even necessarily a derogatory epthet until American blacks began to object to it, after which some people would use it spitefully, just because blacks didn't like it.

Before that, it was just a lower class southern dialectic mispronunciation of the noun "negro," which in itself carried no more hostile meaning than calling someone a "black person."

But I could be wrong.

[XBob]

you did an even better job than me at describing the dialect pronunciation. I can hear it in my head, but I can't get the phonetics of the sound exactly right.