Racist in the Woodpile

My boss has the manners of an old gentleman, is softly-spoken and seems a very tolerant and calm individual. Certainly I would never have him down as a racist or a bigot.

However, he from time to time uses the phrase 'nigger in the woodpile'.

I'll be honest, it's not a phrase I'd really ever come across before. However, having mentioned his use of it to a few people and done some online research I've discovered that apparently it was once a commonly-used term for something being the one stumbling block or undisclosed fact in an otherwise fine situation.

Two things...

Firstly - I wonder what was so particularly annoying about finding a black person in a pile of wood in times gone by?

"Derek, why haven't you brought in the firewood?"

"Well I would have done Mavis, but as I was sorting through the wood, there was a black man hiding in there! The shock put me right out of sync with my otherwise fine chopping motion and frankly I've found it to be a stumbling block to the whole firewood-gathering task for me today."

"Why was there a man in the woodpile, Derek?"

"Didn't think to ask him to be honest and that's not the point - don't you see? He was black! Had he been white like you & I, It wouldn't have been so much of a stumbling block to completing the wood-gathering. But I swear Mavis, he was as black as the ace of spades! I mean, it's just an annoyance Mavis."

"I'm leaving you Derek. The man in the woodpile was my lover."

Once you get over the initial shock of finding a man in your woodpile, I'd have thought that irrespective of his race, the first thing that would come to mind was not "hullo- this is going to be a stumbling block to completing the wood-gathering task" but to ask him why the fuck he was hiding amongst your pile of wood? I don't think I'd brush it off as a slight annoyance like Derek did and go on to coin a phrase out of it. I'd have chased him off of my property with my wood-chopping axe before calling the police to tell them I'd just found a man hiding in my fucking woodpile.

Were black people constantly popping up in woodpiles years ago? Perhaps you couldn't move for woodpiles full of ethnic minorities at the turn of the last century - asking them to leave the woodpile all the time might indeed have been an annoyance if you had fires to constantly keep fuelled I guess.

I think it more likely though that there were very few instances of people of any race turning up in woodpiles at all - let alone it being some form of widespread social nuisance.

I think it more likely that a bigger nuisance to the woodpile-owning classes would be TB-riddled badgers jumping out at you to be honest.

It just seems an odd phrase to have ever fallen into popular use.

Second point is - should I pull my boss up on using this phrase? Clearly I don't like it, but I'm pretty certain it's just something he has probably always used since a time before political correctness and has not really ever stopped to think that he might be being racist.

He is though, obviously and I feel that maybe It's giving tacit acceptance to this casual racism if I didn't mention I found it offensive.

For now I'll continue to wince slightly at the very least.