A nigger in the woodpile (or fence) is an English figure of speech formerly commonly used in the United States and elsewhere. It means "some fact of considerable importance that is not disclosed – something suspicious or wrong".
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Both the 'fence' and 'woodpile' variants developed about the same time in the period of 1840–50 when the Underground Railroad was flourishing. The evidence is slight, but it is presumed that they were derived from actual instances of the concealment of fugitive slaves in their flight north under piles of firewood or within hiding places in stone walls.[1] Another possible origin, comes from the practice of transporting pulpwood on special rail road cars. In the era of slavery, the pulpwood cars were built with an outer frame with the wood being stacked inside in moderately neat rows and stacks. However, given the nature of the cars, it was possible to smuggle persons in the pile itself; possibly giving rise to the term.
An American film comedy entitled A Nigger in the woodpile was released in 1904.[2]
In You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939), W. C. Fields remarks that there's "evidently a Ubangi in the fuel supply." He makes a similar comment in My Little Chickadee (1940), substituting "Ethiopian" for "Ubangi."
In Not So Dumb (1930), actress Marion Davies' dim-bulb character says, "I knew there was a woodpile in the nigger."
In Porky's Railroad (1937), a train quickly passes a pile of wood, thus blowing away all the wood and revealing a black man with large white eyes.
In Ch. 3 of William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, an exploration of the South's racist foundations, Mr. Compson uses the phrase in noting that many in the town of Jefferson thought there was something suspicious about the origins of Thomas Sutpen's money for the mansion and plantation he is building. The phrase has a more biological meaning, though, since Sutpen's son from a previous marriage, the reader learns, is of mixed-blood, threatening the legitimacy of Sutpen's legacy in his and his son Henry's minds.
In Agatha Christie's They Do It with Mirrors, Inspector Curry asks the phrase of Miss Marple in relation to Gina's white GI husband, Wally. The phrase is uttered by Justice Wargrave in And Then There Were None. In Christie's Dumb Witness (copyright 1937), the phrase is the title of Chapter 18 and it is uttered by Hercule Poirot who also asks if it is a "saying." It is also present in Christie's After the Funeral, said by George Crossfield to Poirot in reference to a Mr. Entwhistle.
Can be found in W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge on p. 305 when Gray is talking to author about a new business deal: "As soon as I get to New York I'll fly down to Texas to give it the once over, and you bet I'll keep my eyes peeled for a nigger in the woodpile before I cough up any of Isabel's dough."
In the original version of The Hardy Boys The House on the Cliff, Frank Hardy uses the phrase in Chapter 9 in regard to a suspicious circumstance.
Used in some Erle Stanley Gardner mystery novels.
Used in Paul de Kruif's "Microbe Hunters" (1926), in the chapter on Leeuwenhoek.
In the first footnote of a 1956 article in the Journal of Symbolic Logic, Robin Gandy notes that Alan Turing always spoke of the axiom of extensionality as being 'the nigger in the woodpile'.[3]
Computer scientist E. W. Dijkstra also used the phrase in a paper, where he wrote, "A main nigger in the woodpile is the invention —in Europe— and the subsequent proliferation —primarily in the USA— of the term 'software engineering'."[4]
From the November 1939 issue of Birth Control Review (Vol XXIV, No. 1), published by the Birth Control Federation of America, Inc., Robert C. Cook, Editor of the Journal of Heredity, comments in his article "Birth Rates in Fascist Countries" that the Italian people, in not throwing themselves headlong into Mussolini's appeal to increase the birthrate, "...seem very sensibly to have detected an Ethiopian in the woodpile somewhere..."
In the UK in recent years, the occasional use of this phrase by public figures has normally been followed by an apology.[5][6][7]
In November, 2007, in relation to a debate on the Gaelic Players Association, Fine Gael Senator Paul Coughlan asked "Can the leader kick it into play and give members an update? Who is the nigger in the woodpile?". There was no call for an apology.
David Lord, an ABC News Radio presenter was forced to apologise after using the expression. On 22 February 2007, Alan Jones, another radio presenter, was heard to use the same phrase.[11] There was no call for an apology.
Footballer agent, Bernie Mandic stated in an interview broadcast on Radio Station SEN 1116 on 29 June 2011 "I know it's politically incorrect, but I could throw a nigger in the woodpile, what about Brisbane?", regarding the possibility of football player Harry Kewell playing in Australia for the A-League.
On September 18, 2009, the Town Board of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, confirmed that Police Chief Lou Corsi used the phrase during a phone conversation with Under Sheriff John Mahan, and that the conversation had been recorded.[12]
On December 6, 2009, Joel Barbee made a reference to it in his cartoon "The Woods Pile".[13]