AdmiralMemo wrote:it's easy to see that the reference is to "Gypsies"
Lots of things are easy to see and people's willingness to go from "easy to see" to "must be correct" is why we have tens of thousands of bullshit etymologies that spread like intellectual plagues. Some random layperson's intuition is not relevant to the actual damn academic discipline of lingusitics.
Gyp is more likely to be derived from gypsy than not. But it is not a solid derivation and there is room for disagreement.
Personally I avoid it because growing up it wasn't a word people actually used in day to day speech and thus it was no small loss to avoid it in case it has it's base in an ethnic slur.
On the other hand if niggardly was a word I used in day to day speech (I don't because it's also extremely dated) I wouldn't abandon it because the idea that it derives from a slur is objectively wrong. The feeling of being offended felt by someone offended due to their own ignorance is real but not relevant to my actions. It is the individual's job to avoid being offensive not making people offended. The former is doable if difficult. The latter requires mind-reading and not standing up against toxic behaviour if enforced with consistency.