Gay
ray o'hara
offensive.Gay was the replacement term because it had no bad connontations.
But as i peruse the net I find it is the most common insult hurled. This is
espicially true on sports groups where trolls are always attacking Derek
Jeter,{baseball} Jeff Gordon{NASCAR} and Michael Schumacher{F1} as "gay". My
neices and nephews and kids in general use it when they disapprove of
something saying "that's gay".If a newspaper says someone is a gay young man
they best have proof or lawyers ready.So seeing how gay now has the same bad
meaning as queer did has the Rainbow Brigade decided on a new term for
themselves?
Raymond S. Wise
When "gay" was first used to refer to homosexuals, it *did* have
negative connotations.
See
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/8aabd52d4c589b52?oe=UTF-8&output=gplain
or
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
CDB
"ray o'hara" <r...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:WumdncVjAu1...@comcast.com...
Excuse me does this group exist to leave such questions up to
brigades? i nominate "colo(u)rful".
Andrea Schwanbeck
Everything will have negative connotations sooner or later, everything
will be political incorrect after a few years. I myself have been
rebuked for using the word "queer" in a context in wich it did not
refer to homosexuals and the same happens to people who inadvisedly use
"gay".
Why don't they assume the name of some colour? I seem to remember that
"blue" means "gay" in Russian.
Ah, no, wait, people will be offended because "blue" sounds so...
unhappy in English. Something with a more positive ring to it? Orange,
maybe?
Tony Cooper
wrote:
>Ah, no, wait, people will be offended because "blue" sounds so...
>unhappy in English. Something with a more positive ring to it? Orange,
>maybe?
What! You want to get the Northern Irish Catholics in an uproar?
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando FL
DylanBD
> Why don't they just call themselves "homosexuals" and be done with it?
Why choose that one in particular? Homosexual and
gay-as-used-to-mean-guys-kissing-other-guys are both young words of roughly
equal age--gay was coded slang before it entered common usage, while
homosexual was an academic term before it entered common usage (its first
recorded use is in 1869). Since the slang meaning of gay was a secret, it's
hard to say for sure whether it's slightly older or slightly younger, but it
probably was also first used in the late nineteenth century.
> I myself have been
> rebuked for using the word "queer" in a context in wich it did not
> refer to homosexuals and the same happens to people who inadvisedly use
> "gay".
Nobody has "inadvisedly" used the word gay since about 1972.
Don Phillipson
news:1123312483.3...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> When "gay" was first used to refer to homosexuals, it *did* have
> negative connotations.
This seems to be diisconfirmed by such primary
texts as Mary Renault's The Charioteer (1953):
defensive perhaps but not negative -- at least
in Britain where this novel is set.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Andrea Schwanbeck
Hmm... true. Oh, well, us poor learners, we have. :D
I'm all for the academic term. It's politically correct - I hope it'll
stay that way until the end of the year - and everybody knows what it
denotes. At least, I'm happy with it.
Andrea Schwanbeck
Green? Oh, no, wait, the politicians will shoot us.
Black? Too negative and bordering political incorrectness.
Uhm.... Teal? Turqoise? Pink?
"I'm teal!" Does have a ring to it, doesn't it?
Raymond S. Wise
Don Phillipson wrote:
> "Raymond S. Wise" <mpl...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> news:1123312483.3...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> > When "gay" was first used to refer to homosexuals, it *did* have
> > negative connotations.
>
> This seems to be diisconfirmed by such primary
> texts as Mary Renault's The Charioteer (1953):
> defensive perhaps but not negative -- at least
> in Britain where this novel is set.
"Gay" as applied to sexual matters is a lot older than 1953.
The following is from a Usenet post I wrote on the subject, which can
be seen in Google Groups archive
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/9687174c00cd0ad4
or
[begin quote from Usenet post]
"Gay" was used in a sexual sense before it was ever used for
homosexuals. *The Century Dictionary* of 1895 (
www.century-dictionary.com ) has for the entry "gay" the sense "5.
Given to pleasure ; lively ; in a bad sense, given to vicious pleasure
; loose ; dissipated." It also has "The gay science" as an obsolete
term for "literature and poetry, especially amorous poetry, in the
middle ages." See also the following-referenced Usenet post in which
the writer quotes the OED:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=61tv5r%24kru%241%40news.ccit.ari...
or
[end quote from Usenet post]
Anton Shepelev
> I first heard it used in that sense in 1961, and it
> was used by people who regarded themselves as gay,
> and they certainly saw it as positive.
Your sillogism assumes that one always refers to one-
self positively, which is wrong.
--
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments
Bertel Lund Hansen
> Your sillogism assumes that one always refers to one-
> self positively, which is wrong.
and they certainly saw it as positive.
--
Bertel
Quinn C
> On Sat, 24 Sep 2022 06:43:33 -0700 (PDT), Christofer Döss (Spaceflash)
> <aurorare...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>måndag 8 augusti 2005 kl. 02:04:46 UTC+2 skrev Raymond S. Wise:
>>> Don Phillipson wrote:
>>> > "Raymond S. Wise" <mpl...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>>> > news:1123312483.3...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>> >
>>> > > When "gay" was first used to refer to homosexuals, it *did* have
>>> > > negative connotations.
>
>
> Very few non-gay people knew the term at all.
From what I heard, at least some gay people used it as a code word in
the early days, so they could talk about the subject in public without
raising suspicions.
--
Do not they speak false English ... that doth not speak thou to one,
and what ever he be, Father, Mother, King, or Judge, is he not a
Novice, and Unmannerly, and an Ideot, and a Fool, that speaks Your
to one, which is not to be spoken to a singular, but to many?
-- George Fox (1660)
Sam Plusnet
> * Steve Hayes:
>
>> On Sat, 24 Sep 2022 06:43:33 -0700 (PDT), Christofer Döss (Spaceflash)
>> <aurorare...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> måndag 8 augusti 2005 kl. 02:04:46 UTC+2 skrev Raymond S. Wise:
>>>> Don Phillipson wrote:
>>>>> "Raymond S. Wise" <mpl...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:1123312483.3...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>>>>
>>>>>> When "gay" was first used to refer to homosexuals, it *did* have
>>>>>> negative connotations.
>>
>> I first heard it used in that sense in 1961, and it was used by people
>> who regarded themselves as gay, and they certainly saw it as positive.
>>
>> Very few non-gay people knew the term at all.
>
> From what I heard, at least some gay people used it as a code word in
> the early days, so they could talk about the subject in public without
> raising suspicions.
>
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/polari-and-hidden-history-of-gay-seafarers
--
Sam Plusnet
CDB
> Steve Hayes:
>> I first heard it used in that sense in 1961, and it was used by
>> people who regarded themselves as gay, and they certainly saw it
>> as positive.
> Your sillogism assumes that one always refers to one- self
> positively, which is wrong.
Anton Shepelev
> Anton Shepelev:
> >
> > > I first heard it used in that sense in 1961, and
> > > it was used by people who regarded themselves as
> > Your sillogism assumes that one always refers to
> > one- self positively, which is wrong.
>
> You are assuming that Steve Hayes doesn't have a
> clue of what he is talking about when he writes:
>
> and they certainly saw it as positive.
>
> I think he does.
White that off to the common autumnal cold with which
I currently down. Yesterday it was at its peak but is
now rolling down the outer slope towards conva-
lescense.
Opinicus
<haye...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> I first heard it used in that sense in 1961, and it was used by people
> who regarded themselves as gay, and they certainly saw it as positive.
article (or more likely letter-to-the-editor) in which there raged a
battle over the meaning of the word. (I recall something about
tickling babies on the tummy to see if that would make them "gay".)
While the cant use of the word may go way back, it certainly didn't
brush against the mainstream much before that as is evidenced by the
name of the US bomber that nuked Hiroshima in 1945. (The plane was
named after the pilot's mother.) Had the US military even the
slightest inkling of what the word meant to "those people" you may be
sure that some other aircraft would have been chosen instead.
--
Bob
Sidera errantia quibus procella tenebrarum in aeternum servata est
Tony Cooper
the name even if there was awareness of the usage of "gay" in the
sense of being homosexual.
The pilot of the "Enola Gay" - Col Paul Tibbets - chose the name of
the aircraft and named it after his mother: Enola Gay Tibbets. It
has always been the custom of the military to allow the pilot or the
crew to choose the plane's nickname.
"Gay", and "Gaye", have been somewhat common as the first or middle
name of women for many years.
This chart goes back to only 1950, but you can see that Gay/Gaye was a
a popular name until about the early 1960s when it started to decline
in popularity.
https://babynames.com/name/gay
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando Florida
I read and post to this group as a form of entertainment.
HVS
"Gaye Stewart". (I was at grad school in the 1970s with his son.)
I'd always assumed that it was short for "Gaylord", but a quick
google says his full name was "James Gaye Stewart".
Kerr-Mudd, John
mentioned that the Flintstones had a 'gay old time'.
Yabba, Dabba, and indeed Doo!
--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.
Opinicus
<ad...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
> I don't think it was used as a codeword until way after Hanna Barbera (sp?)
> mentioned that the Flintstones had a 'gay old time'.
--
Bob
The people your parents warned you about