BS: Why the Q?

Subject: BS: Why the Q?
From: mkebenn
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 08:10 AM

I was wondering why the Q was added to to LBGT. I always at least for( 20yrs, anyway) that term was unacceptable. like faggot when not used for firewood or cigarettes. Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 08:19 AM

href="https://www.quora.com/What-identity-is-being-described-when-you-say-queer-with-respect-to-LBGTQ">This might explain?

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 08:20 AM

Oops! Try again...

This might explain?

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 12:01 PM

mkebenn:
Not just cigarettes and firewood. Also a tasty Food

Also I must admit that I haven't heard it with the meaning of 'cigarette', although the shortened version 'fag' does have that meaning.

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 12:41 PM

Back in the Air Force, 1985/6ish, I used to get my HIV/AIDS education handouts from a site that one day turned into queer.net. Had to explain that one.

The term has been "owned" by the gender atypical since then. I suppose if you spit it out, it can be derogatory, but I don't think it's likely to cause much offense in someone who calls themselves "queer".

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: meself
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 01:03 PM

You've got to stay on your toes to keep up with this stuff. You leave the country for a month or two, you miss the memo, and you're some kind of Rip Van Winkle .... Take me, for instance. Thank you. I hadn't even heard about the 'Q' being tacked onto the end of LB,etc. .....

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 01:09 PM

In the UK a 'faggot' is a food item, rather like a large, spicy meatball, made from offal and mince.

A 'fag' is a cigarette.

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: mkebenn
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 02:05 PM

Backwoodsman Now that you mention it, it was always fag for cig. In my youth in the dark ages fag was just a short form and every bit as derogatory. Thanks for the link, seems like I'm not the only confused one. never heard of the food. Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: ripov
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 06:21 PM

Faggots

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 10:40 PM

Another case of a useful word vandalised, so that it becomes hard to use it in it's older sense of odd/strange. I suppose it's too late to try to restore it, perhaps in it's Dublin spelling, as in the Quare Fellow, where it's got no implicastion of gayness. (There is a gay character in the play, referred to as "the Othet Fellow" - that's a word that hasn't been diverted so far, anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Jun 16 - 05:13 AM

I believe a new generation of the fraternity are re-posssing the Q

FWIW The word Gay has been in and out of many meanings for centuries. It was applied to heterosexually profligate in one era, as was brisk, as in "brisk young widow".

Bad meanings drive out good. But then fall into disuse. It is the nature of all languages. Including to a far lesser degree - Latin. (Dead but won't lie down).

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 15 Jun 16 - 09:50 AM

Apparently queer literary criticism is a thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_theory

also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_studies

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: meself
Date: 15 Jun 16 - 10:34 AM

Wow - I feel better now: you guys are even further behind the times than I am. I just hadn't heard about the Q - the letter - being added to the ol' LGBT.

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Pete from seven stars link
Date: 15 Jun 16 - 10:58 AM

Many years ago it might mean ..sick, unwell ....though I do also remember it used as referring to homosexuals. I got no idea if it has a yet more specialised limited use now ?

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Jun 16 - 11:58 AM

I can never hear the word 'queer' without remembering dear old Stanley Holloway reciting "My word, you do look queer!" (It meant really poorly) It's on Youtube if anyone's interested.

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: olddude
Date: 15 Jun 16 - 01:58 PM

My little horse must think it queer to stop with out a farmhouse near between the woods and frozen lake the darkest evening of the year

Robert frost

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Jun 16 - 02:11 PM

...and miles to go before I sleep.

Oh I adore that poem olddude, it always brings tears to my eyes.

As a child, we often said things such as , "He's a queer sort of chap."
Or, "I'm feeling a bit queer."

But of course the word 'gay' meant merely brightly coloured or cheerful, as in 'gay curtains at the windows' or 'She had on a very gay frock."

I'm always terrified nowadays that I say something toe-curlingly awful by mistake. Agatha Christie's murder mystery was originally called 'Ten Little N***** Boys' We always thought that to say 'black people' was terrible, we'd say 'coloured people'. Even the word 'dear' is apparently patronising or insulting. Gulp. I'd best keep my mouth shut. (A suggestion my husband would heartily endorse.)

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jun 16 - 08:33 PM

This seems to be in line with the activist theory that "If WE say it about ourselves, it loses it's power as an insult." Not everyone agrees, of course, but it's just an "in your face" way of keeping the bigots off balance.

I know that some "african-americans" throw out the N word to make a similar point, but it doesn't work the same way as 'queer'. It all depends on context.

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 16 Jun 16 - 12:03 AM

This thread reminds me of a news item I saw a few years back. Some big-time conservative Christian organization objected to the use of "gay" to mean homosexual. So, some genius decided to program the word processing program they used on their computer network to automatically substitute "homosexual" for "gay" any time it appeared in a document. When the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb became "The Enola Homosexual" they concluded they'd made a mistake.

Subject: RE: BS: Why the Q?
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Jun 16 - 03:21 AM

When I started teaching, we used a reading scheme called 'Gay Days'!
And there was a launderette I used as a student called Gayways.