[skimbell]

One school year I had another teacher jump me about using the term ‘picnic’ while mentioning that years school picnic.
He assured me that the term was a derivative of the word picaninny and that he, being black, was all sort of offended by the term.
I told him that I understood his being offended by that use of the word, but that I was using the word that was derived from the French...pique-nique and that that had nothing to do with picaninny.

[spaced]

Your comment on pique nique seemed too good to be true. So I checked it. (I do this often because the Internet abounds with authoritative falsehoods.) Thank you for a chuckle and an interesting bit of trivia!

[RightLady]

I was at a big family picnic and a large black family had a table near us. I was only 5. one of my great aunts referred to the kids as picaninnies. So I thought a picaninny was a little black kid at a picnic. It was many years before I learned the real meaning.