BS: Gay Terminology

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 03:38 PM

naff is a rather old fashioned English expression meaning dorky or geeky or unfashionable. I never use it in Atlantic City. But we did say that things were "gay" to mean stupid or unfashionable.

I was surprised to hear my daughter using the word "gay" in exactly the same way as i did when I was growing up in America, because it is a whole generation later and she is growing up 3000 miles from where I did.

As a completely seperate issue, Polari is a UK thing. It was a slang gay people used to identify and communicate with one another when being gay was still illegal in the UK, and it became part of the culture. Some of the words are supposed to have come from Romany, and some are simply back to front, like "riah" for hair.

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 07:11 PM

stupid or unfashionable - the assumption being that those are the same thing. A singularly daft way of thinking that is always in fashion.

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 11:31 AM

Words are constantly being appropriated. "Reality" never used to mean "placing people in artificial situations and manipulating their actions", but thanks to TV, that's what people think when they hear that word now.
The symbol "@" used to mean "at $x a piece". Thanks to computers, it now means something else.

Remember when we refered to a swashbuckling pirate as a "gay blade"?

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 12:35 PM

"stupid or unfashionable - the assumption being that those are the same thing."

Assumption by whom? I said "or" advisedly - gay was a wonderfully catch-all word. Food could be gay, clothes could be gay, a remark could be gay, your parents could be gay for telling you you couldn't go out till you'd finished your homework, a TV programme or a song could be gay for being stupid, or unfashionable, or both...

Actually, the most recent British equivalent is "crap".

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 12:47 PM

@ still means the same - "at"

I wasn't accusing you of the fallacy of unfashionable=stupid, Ruth. It's an assumption that has evidently been made by the fashionistas of every age, in clothes, speech, music... One of the special things about folk music is that to some extent, though very inconsistently, we resist it.
...........................

"Crap" doesn't really have quite the same meaning as that use of "gay" - it means something is worthless rubbish, but it doesn't have the same in-group sneer to it. It's common to different generations, and has been for generations. Hardly "the most recent".

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: PoppaGator
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 02:09 PM

My kids (now 24-30) have long used the word "gay" to mean ~ what? "unfashionable OR stupid" defines it pretty well, but maybe "lame" is the closest synonym. I think they use this expression less frequently and less freely nowadays than they did in their high school years, if for no other reason than that some of their friends have come out as gay, and they are much more careful not to be offensive now that they realize that people they actually know and like might be offended.

In this context, the word really does not mean "homosexual," although use of the expression certainly signals a tacit implication that there is something less-than-worthy about an unconventional sexual orientation.

A somewhat similar usage from an earlier generation is use of the word "fruit" as an adjective meaning petty/mean/cowardly, as a tattletale. "Aw, man, that's fruit!". I know that this expression became pretty common in New Orleans in the 50s/60s, and some folks who grew up in that time and place still say it once in a while (albeit only in an ironic manner, at this late date). I'm not sure how widely this expression may have been used elsewhere in the English speaking world.

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 04:01 PM

Fortunately we can still talk about apples and pears and bananas as "fruit" without that meaning seen as no longer current. (Currants too for that matter.)

I think there are enough examples of gay being used in its carefree/happy etc sense in our literary and song heritage for it still to survive and even revive. After all "gay" in it sexual orientation sense got the positive connotations that made it useful because of those associations.

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 04:07 PM

' "Crap" doesn't really have quite the same meaning as that use of "gay" - it means something is worthless rubbish, but it doesn't have the same in-group sneer to it. It's common to different generations, and has been for generations. Hardly "the most recent".'

Ever since the late 80s/early 90s alternative comedy of Rob Newman, David Baddiel and the Mary Whitehouse Experience (very much my generation), "crap" has been a completely catch-all term.

Looking at the examples in my last post, "crap" in this context would be interchangeable with "gay" in each one.

If my daughter's peer group is anything to go by, "gay" has lost its in-group sneeriness. It just means things that are, well, crap.

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 04:38 PM

Interesting lines from Hamish Hendersons wonderful song "Freedom come all ye"
"A' thae rogues that gang gallus, fresh and gay
Tak' the road tae seek ither loanin's
Their ill ploys tae sport and play"
Susanne has collected the notes of Thomas Crawford on this song
"For example, 'gallus, fresh and gay', adjectives appropriate to debonair lovers of life, are applied to 'oor rottans' - the parasitic practitioners of a false dolce vita nourished by the sufferings and degradation of common folk."

I like "gay" as "a debonair lover of life"...the old meaning.
Henderson used it to describe "practitioners of a false dolce vita".
Perhaps there is a little sense in the modern usage :0)

I also remember "gallus" as cheeky, confident, sure of ones self to the point of arrogance.   Back in 70s Scotland, gallus was adopted by young people as meaning anything which was good or fashionable.
Being a folkie, this annoyed me at the time, but I've come to realise that it is the sound of the word which has the meaning to the youth.
Traditional meaning does not seem to matter one jot.

Of course, as i've said earlier this usage is completely different from the usage of "gay" in place of homosexual which was a cynical piece of re-branding to further an agenda....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: Azizi
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 05:32 PM

Fwiw, I've never heard or read "gay" or "fruit" used by African Americans the way those words are described by Ruth Archer and Poppagator..

Some equivalent colloquial words that we do use {and have used in the past} are "lame"; "weak", "tired", "sorry", and "jive" {including "lame ass", "weak ass", "sorry ass", "tired ass" and "jive ass"}.

Examples: "I don't like that lame ass record. It's real weak.

and

"Did you hear that jive ass speech that sorry excuse for ____{name a political position] made last night? Who does he thinks gonna vote for his lame ass self?

****
Hmmm.

Check out all of those asses.

You could say that our asses get a lot of work.

;o}

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: Azizi
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 05:42 PM

Sorry. I'm still learning how to do that italic font thingy. I didn't mean for the portion of my last post after the asterisks to be in italics.

Off subject:

Not that this has anything directly to do with the subject of this thread...but since I'm here, fwiw, the opposite of "lame", "tired", "weak", "jive", "sorry", etc is "hot", "the bomb", "off the hook", "off the chain", and new phrases that I'm not hip to.

"Cool", "hip", "out of sight", "dynamite", "smokin" {as in "That song is really smokin"} and a host of other superlatives have been retired by most African Americans. But some or all of them may still be in current use among other Americans.

**
Btw, note the connections between "hot", "smokin", "dynamite" and "the bomb"...

There's a method to this madness...

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 06:59 PM

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child born on the Sabbath Day,
Is fair and wise and good and gay.

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 02:14 PM

A casualty of the times:
The Gay 90s Tavern in Denver was a neighborhood bar for over 50 years in the south end of the city, and was very much a blue collar hangout. Finally, for reasons including drive-by harassment of patrons and a gradual but significant shift in the nature of the clientele, the bar changed its name to Lumber Jack's, and became ironically, at last, a gay bar.

Yes, the term gay is becoming more and more prevalent, in particular among those under 25, to mean weak, lame, silly, pretentious. I bought a cell-phone case, a reasonable one I thought, made of black stretchy material with a clear face plate. A business associate said "your cell case is kind of gay", but refused to elaborate on what made it that way. I also mentioned putting up some track lighting in my den, but the drummer in my band said "I don't know. Track lighting is kind of gay." What is interesting to me, is I believe young people today are less prejudiced against homosexuals than my generation was, and yet the term "gay" as a negative adjective is far more prevalent than terms we used like queer, faggy, etc. Does it reveal a prevalent underlying hate or resentment? Interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 04:00 PM

As far as I'm concerned, "gay" used to be a great word once, a long time ago, until it got coopted in the modern era to mean "homosexual"...but that's the way it goes with language. I suspect that "gay" is going through the latter phase now of becoming gradually less fashionable, just as previous terms did, such as "Afro-American" or "Negro" or "colored"...all replaced by "Black".

There will come a time, I'm sure, when "Black" and "gay" are both replaced in acceptability by some other more fashionable words in the popular vernacular. Wait and see. ;-)

By the way, I finally saw "Brokeback Mountain" last night. Excellent movie. Very good acting by all concerned. I can't relate at all to two men being sexually attracted to one another...it just doesn't connect for me...but I could certainly relate to their powerful emotional connection, so as a love story it was a good one. Very tragic! Larry McMurtry was in on that project, and he simply loves depicting the crushing finality of little private human tragedies, specially if they are set in the American West.

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 06:55 PM

There will come a time... Maybe there'll come a time when the people these words identify won't have to deal with prejudice and antagonism, and whatever words used will just be neutral and casual, and won't get loaded with the hostility that means they have to be replaced periodically.

Anyway, if "gay" gets retired in its sex orientation role, because young oiks are using it as a put down word in other contexts, I hope we can start reclaiming it for its older meaning, because the language is badly missing it. And I have a feeling the loss of the word is making it hard to recognise and value the quality it stood for - "fair and wise and good and gay".

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: akenaton
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 02:39 AM

Just about sums you up McGrath.

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 05:11 AM

'And I have a feeling the loss of the word is making it hard to recognise and value the quality it stood for - "fair and wise and good and gay". '

can't say I've lost any sleep over it. words are there to serve us and mean what we want.

I honestly have never thought - oh I wish I could call that bloke gay, but I wouldn't want people to think I was calling him a woofter.

When my sister was in a choir she used to sing a song that went - Its grand to be gay on St Nicholas Day - but meaning wise , I thought it was a step in the right direction. I mean would anyone normal want to be caught dead singing that?

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 05:51 AM

What I had in mind was the kind of thing George Orwell explored in 1984 as NewSpeak - if we haven't got a word for some abstract concept or quality it's hard even to think about it. That's one reason we borrow words from other languages to fill in gaps in our own.

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 11:38 AM

Yeah, and the flip side of that is that people, once they have a word for something, think that they KNOW exactly what it is. The truth is, they usually do not know what it is, they just know another word.

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 01:52 PM

If what you say is true, LH, then none of us know the meaning of any of the words we are using here, which means that all of this discussion is meaningless!! Oh, wait, I knew that....

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: GUEST,Humpty Dumpty
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 02:04 PM

'When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean

Subject: RE: BS: Gay Terminology
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 02:26 PM

Well, I'll say this... ;-) You don't KNOW something by knowing a lot of words about it. You only KNOW it by experiencing it directly. The words are just symbols with which you attempt to communicate with other people about it later, and they're the best symbols we've got for that purpose, but they're still only symbols.