Epithet

In Chinese, 这个 (zhège) means “this” and 那个 (nàgè) means “that”.  Interestingly, 那个 is also what the Chinese use instead of “um” or “uh” when speaking.  (This sprinkling of meaningless pause syllables in verbal communication is known as speech disfluency, in case you were wondering.)

This is all well and good, except for the fact that it’s spoken so quickly that instead of properly pronouncing 那个 as “nah-guh” it drifts into sounding more like “neh-guh” (like Nega Scott in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) or, more unfortunately, “nih-guh”.

Yeah.

So, today, in your mind, try replacing every “um” or “uh” or “like” or “y’know” you hear with the worst racial epithet in the American lexicon.  It starts feeling like you’re walking around with Huck Finn in the Deep South.