I was glad that Dave Sunderland pointed out in his 19Dec07 post : "When I was a kid in the North East of England and I, or someone else, was referred to as a "faggot" it meant that they were a source of annoyance or irritation. It was many years later that I learned that in USA it was a term used to describe a homosexual...."

My late Mother, well educated and well spoken, and born 1923 in West Aussie, occasionally used the expression when one of her cats was being exceedingly frustratingly annoying!! She had nothing against gay folks, (.... but the American culture that was taking us over post WWII, was quite another thing!)

So cultural context and country of origin is everything, eh.

Merry Bah-Humbug!!

Cheers, R-J
Down Under