Greedy Goblin

Friday, January 20, 2012

They are so gay!

Some would say you can't have fun reading an encyclopedia. Yet I laughed a lot reading the description of the word "gay" on Wikipedia. I share it with you, not only to laugh but to provide munition against the "fun ppl". So Wikipedia says:

The term was originally used to refer to feelings of being "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy"; it had also come to acquire some connotations of "immorality" as early as 1637. The term's use as a reference to homosexuality may date as early as the late 19th century, but its use gradually increased in the 20th century... At about the same time, a new, pejorative use became prevalent in some parts of the world. In the Anglosphere, this connotation, among younger speakers, has a derisive meaning equivalent to rubbish or stupid (as in "That's so gay.")... When used in this way, the extent to which it still retains connotations of homosexuality has been debated and harshly criticized.

For most of its life in English, the word's primary meaning was "joyful", "carefree", "bright and showy", and the word was very commonly used with this meaning in speech and literature. For example, the optimistic 1890s are still often referred to as the Gay Nineties... The word had started to acquire associations of immorality by 1637 and was used in the late 17th century with the meaning "addicted to pleasures and dissipations." This was by extension from the primary meaning of "carefree": implying "uninhibited by moral constraints." A gay woman was a prostitute, a gay man a womanizer and a gay house a brothel.

The use of gay to mean "homosexual" was in origin merely an extension of the word's sexualised connotation of "carefree and uninhibited", which implied a willingness to disregard conventional or respectable sexual mores. Such usage is documented as early as the 1920s, and there is evidence for it before the 20th century, although it was initially more commonly used to imply heterosexually unconstrained lifestyles... this usage could apply to women too. ... Through the mid 20th century, the term "gay" commonly referred to "carefree", as illustrated in the Astaire and Rogers film The Gay Divorcee.

By the mid-20th century, gay was well established in reference to hedonistic and uninhibited lifestyles and its antonym straight, which had long had connotations of seriousness, respectability, and conventionality, had now acquired specific connotations of heterosexuality. In the case of gay, other connotations of frivolousness and showiness in dress ("gay apparel") led to association with camp and effeminacy. This association no doubt helped the gradual narrowing in scope of the term towards its current dominant meaning, which was at first confined to subcultures.


Whoa! Just whoa! The term "gay" orignially meant "fun peep" and turned to describe homosexuals as the bigots believed that homosexuals are just deviants who ignore proper conduct for fun. When something is called "it's so gay" it's not an insult in the sense as "it is as bad as the homosexuals" but in the sense of "it is as bad as the fun ppl" and this insult was used on homosexuals so often that it became their name.

When you meet someone (usually in LFR/BG/LFD) who claims playing terribly is OK since he plays for fun, remind him that he is so bad that the bigots insult the homosexuals with him and reference en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay. Since among lolkids homosexuality is a serious insult (losers are usually bigots as they need some fixed, non-merit based group to look down), this will definitely hit.

15 comments:

Azuriel said...

Yeah, that won't be counter-productive and get you banned at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

Gevlon said...

Why would they ban you for linking and accurately quoting wikipedia.

Or it can be rephrased to be totally non-offensive (while being totally offensive):

Wikipedia says "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy" are the orignial meaning of the term "gay".

You just quoted without pointing fingers. But everyone will get the point.

Anonymous said...

The lolkids wont understand what you are talking about.

Anonymous said...

Would not work. This is way to sublime for an M&S to understand, and I doubt even GMs get the clever joke.

But I was amused nevertheless.

I once had to explain to a foreigner the difference between "I am a racist" and "If you behave like this (referring to him being a total ass in public) then people will think of you badly, and become racist." And it boiled down to me just retracting my statement after 15 minutes, because I didn't want to get beat up, and he just could not understand the difference between the two things.

Dunning said...

I agree with the first Anonymous post.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger-Effekt

"The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to recognize their mistakes."

Rem said...

@Anonymous#2:

Actually, claiming that people "become racist" from observing a "foreigner" misbehave in public pretty much makes you a racist, or at the very least a full-on apologist. The inability to distinguish between condemning the actions of a single individual and condemning an entire race or (large) group of people based on disapproval for certain behavioural patterns observed in only a few representatives of said race or group of people is precisely what constitutes racism or bigotry.

Saying "if you behave like an ass people will hate your race" is racist, unless in saying that you place the blame on the "people" rather than the person you're addressing - which would make no sense in making a point as the person you're addressing is, in fact (based on your testimony), behaving like an ass. It's actually a shame you gave someone behaving like a total ass the higher ground by intentionally sinking deeper than him.

So, yeah, there is a difference between "if you behave like that people will dislike you" and "if you behave like that people will dislike your race" - and that difference is called "racism".

Anonymous said...

@ Rem, that logic doesn't work out so well. I think most racists are that way because of their observations of a certain ethnic group. Everyone has small stereotypes in their mind, and when you see it confirmed, your subconscious links the two together causing racist thoughts.

..on topic though, I think Dunning has it right. M&S are to stupid to get the reference. If they are too lazy to read about their class, they wont read about how ignorant they are.

Bobbins said...

Many things which were acceptable in the past aren't now. Enid Blyton was a huge racist that her books are rewritten (Ref Cheeky Monkey).

Is this in response to countdown having w***** been allowed? It is acceptable to use within Countdowns rules but not to be broadcast.

PS Enid Blyton stories weren't racist just from a different time.

chewy said...

Your argument collapses at the end of the piece Gevlon

Gay became associated with immorality as you mentioned because it's the antithesis of discipline but fun is not the same thing as gay and has never had the same connotations.

Look up fun on wikipedia and notice that it makes no reference to gay and suggests that you can even have fun while you are working.

Saturas said...

I'm certain you won't get banned, I've called people far worse then gay, but never got a ban or warning. They are just clicking "report spam", thinking they should use that in this case, and don't write a letter to a GM that there is someone calling them a (won't write it down here).

Andru said...

I am interested where I could find the M&S that will not read on their class, but they'll drop everything and read Wikipedia.

This is past the fact that I had to read your point twice to make sense of it and it made a distinct: "Huh. So what?" impression on me.

Goodmongo said...

Gevlon, the bigots didn't use gay to describe homosexuals. the homosexual world adopted the word gay for their lifestyle. And now that gay has a coonotation of geing dumb or stupid the homosexual word is mad and wants to punish the use of the word in that context.

Anonymous said...

Interesting blog post. "Who say you can't have fun reading and encyclopedia?" Not me. Fun ppl maybe who claim wikipedia is full of incorrectness.

There are many words with different meanings but written the same as other words. They are called homonyms. That's some news that needed a blog post allright.

Gay is one, as well in english as in french, although in french it's not quite an homonym (gai = frivolous/happy and gay= homosexual). In french it is a verbal homonym (pronounced the same).

Also in english, like and like. One is liking something, as in feelings of "attraction" to it and the other is being like something.

In Japanese, Kara and Kara. One means because, the other means from.

In french, mineur. One means someone under 18/17, one who has not yet reach adulthood. The other mineur is one who works in a mine.

Like someone said, they wouldn't understand.

Like another someone said, Dunning-Kruger effect.

I just noticed you never made a post on Dunning-Kruger. That's one thing that explains the behaviour of retarded M&S quite nicely, as well as explaining why they won't read your wikipedia link. I suggest you look into it. See the link in the comments above or search wikipedia.

Also, what chewy said.

Anonymous said...

Yes, the French word gai means exactly that. Oh, we had a laugh in school when we were taught that word. Yawn.

Thing is, people connect gay with homosexuality. And calling someone homosexual is an insult (this is coming from someone who has a warning on their account for calling someone 'cock').

Hardly anyone uses the meaning 'fun', and GMs don't like such jokes. A friend of mine got a warning on his account for making a Baradin Hold racist run for humans only.

Anonymous said...

Rem@ saying people will be racist towards you because of your actions is not racist in itself. It's acknowledging a fact. A sad fact maybe but a fact none the less.

Hating a race because of one persons actions is racist. Realizing and saying that people do this is not racist at all.