79% of Democrats said they were in favor of letting gays and lesbians serve openly in the armed forces while only 43% were in favor of letting homosexuals serve openly. Huh? It's all in the wording. Always was dubious of polls, but even more so now:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/the-poll-democrats-need-t_b_537993.html

Ha! I guess we're not as smart as we thought.

Don't get me started on those damn monogamists and masticators.

I find masticators repulsive.

Yeah but some masticators make a lot of dough !!

I'm not defending either side, but is there anything in the link that actually shows the different polls? I really don't have the time to read the whole page plus its supporting links.

Throw me a bone.

Well, presumably because gays are perceived as persons who happen to be happy and carefree whereas homosexuals are those who indulge in same-sex activities... but I could be wrong...

km

No charge for the proofreading, big fella. Carry on.

In other news: a faggot is a bundle of kindling.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

That is sooooooo dirty.

No, well if you don't like my suggestion as to the findings the ball's in your court to explain 'em.

km

Nope. You're the one selling the kook-agenda, biased "findings". You're the one who's got the 'splainin' to do, Lucy.

Nope... I've offered an explanation of the findings and you haven't... so it's back to you.

km

Actually, lanovami explained the findings in the op: "it's all in the wording" ...

Personally I'd agree that "Gay and Lesbian" is a lot more marketing-friendly than "homosexual" ... but I don't think I go as far as agree with your interpretation of the details ...

What have you offered? Playing with an empty hand. Again.

No, the technical word for a same sex practitioner is 'homosexual'... words like 'gay' and 'queer' are informal alternatives but happen to have a duel meaning because they already meant something else before they were expropriated.

km

You mean like "lawyer" and "ambulance chaser"? I see your point now.

Not really... one is either a lawyer or one is not.

km

Q: Do you know the difference btwn God and a lawyer?

A: God doesn't think he's a lawyer.

The OED apparenly disagrees ...

"— USAGE Gay is now a standard term for ‘homosexual’ [...] lesbian being the standard term for homosexual women."

Last I checked, "standard" =/= "informal alternative"

But do carry on anyways ...

I never said it wasn't "a standard term' only that it had a dual meaning.

km

Oh yes... Off on another one of your corkscrew logic journeys. Have a nice trip.

I get it. You're your own night-light.

Except that the poll states "gays and lesbians", and lesbians are by default homosexuals who indulge in same-sex activities. Except they have boobies.

I think it's pretty simple. "Homosexual" is a generic, medical term. Naturally enough people who don't see themselves as ill because of the sexual choices they make reject the term. So the general term gets split into gays, who are males, and lesbians, who are females, terms that do not have the medical baggage and so aren't objectionable.

No it's not a medical term because it's not a medical condition.

km

It originated as a medical term. Since six-of-one invoked the majesty of the OED, I'll point out that the OED has as the first usage of the term, in 1892, an entry in Krafft-Ebing's Psychophathia Sexualis--sexual psychopathologies. The term is still understood in those terms. But I agree that it is in fact not a disease or a medical condition. Therefore gays and lesbians reject the term because of its etymological pejoration.

They can't really reject the term because 'gay' means 'homosexual', amongst other things, so it happens to be correct.

km

Let's just say that wordplay is not your strong suit.

And I see The Groupie will accompany His Minus on the road trip — head thrust out the car window, tongue and ears flapping in the wind, spittle dripping down the side of the door. ARF!

er ...

Glances at MY avatar.
Roit.

Go Nutz, Chuckles,


You've Been Flagged.

I glances at your avatar, too. The I turns to stone.

Figured you were talking to YOUR Groupie.

No I meant that words have meanings even if those to whom they apply don't like 'em... Peter Tatchell for example considers himself neither gay nor homosexual but 'queer' when in fact he happens to be all three.

km

Oh I see... no informal words can be standard words... so 'Brit' for example means 'Briton' just as 'straight' for example means 'heterosexual', amongst other things.

km

More assumptions. To be more precise — more incorrect assumptions. You never learn. Never...

The way that the gay/lesbian community, not to mention the academic community has appropriated "queer" makes the term very different from any of the others in the discussion so far. To be "queer" is to be at odds with dominant discourses, and that doesn't require one to be gay or lesbian. At the last conference I attended, in fact, there was a recurring focus on the very un-queer character of the gay and lesbian community's desire to legalize same-sex marriages. The argument was that marriage buys into the standard social model, and is therefore preeminently not queer. So there were many gay and lesbian members of the Shakespeare scholarly community who were rather conflicted by the difference between their intellectual and their social desires.

Not to mention the fact that "queer" has a decidedly derogatory connotation, which "gay" does not. Gays referring to themselves as queer falls into the same bucket as African Americans calling each other the "N" word (I never did understand why any given group would want to "own" the most demeaning slurs against themselves as some kind of badge).

KM's "double meaning" rationale is meaningless in the context of the issue at hand.

Thinking that your lame attempt at a personal attack
was misdirected since MY avatar is a Faerie/Luna Moth
While your "groupie's" is of a *e-hem* Female Dog is
therefore not an unreasonable assumption on my part.

Slow kvetch day for you is it, Mothra? You may want to learn the difference btwn groupie and friend. The latter doesn't require the slobber and needy whining that the former does. Now go eat a sweater or something.

ARF indeed.

I wouldn't say they've 'appropriated' it but certainly the sense in which Tatchell uses the word is limited to 'homosexual'. In fact neither 'gay' nor 'queer' require one to be homosexual so the only word that really stands apart for its precision is 'homosexual' itself.

km

I'm just telling you the way that "queer" has been appropriated (I'll repeat the term, because that's exactly what's been done) the term "queer," as for instance inbooks edited by Jonathan Goldberg (Queering the Renaissance), or by Glenn Burger (Queering the Middle Ages) or by Charles Morris (Queering Public Address). Lee Edelman's No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive is perhaps a more comprehensive study of the theoretical grounding for the term, but certainly Queering the Renaissance is an excellent, important book. I've only glanced at the book on the middle ages and on public speaking.

Maybe you think they've appropriated it from you but they haven't appropriated it from the rest of us because we still think it means: strange, odd, slightly ill, homosexual, spoil or ruin.

km

No, an "alternative" can't be "standard", unless it's an "alternative standard", which would still be a "standard". I was reading your phrasing as "are informal alternatives to the standard definition" ;-)

I would suggest, though, that all the terms in question are "standard", with "Gay" and "Lesbian" being subsets of the more generic "Homosexual" ... the interesting point being that the more generic term appears to have more negative baggage associated with it than the two subsets ...

Wouldn't your inclusion of "homosexual" in that list indicate a successful appropriation? Unless you consider that "appropriating" a term requires elimination of all other possible meanings?

For what it's worth, I would submit the term "lesbian" is equally precise -- the only thing missing is a term for a homosexual male that has no additional definitions ... (although in a practical modern sense, "Gay" fits this role, since the term is less apt to mean "happy or light-hearted" anymore) ...

Well, previously by persons choosing to use the term pejoratively of homosexuals, yes - his point was that it was appropriated again by gays, lesbians and academics so as not to imply homosexuality.

km

To say that someone is 'light hearted and carefree' is a bit of mouthfull so 'gay' is stil the most economic word for that disposition. I don't know whether you've noticed but the kids these days are tending to use the word to mean 'wayward, ludicrous and laughable' and most of 'em are not going to use three long words when one short one will do.

km

Academic use is often at odds with popular use. No news in that.

I'm impressed with The Lurking Lawyer's verbal gymnastics and his very clever rationalization of the use of language. In fact, he is a most cunning linguist.

Be that as it may, in practice today it's very rare to hear the word used in that context. Honestly, when was the last time you heard someone described as "gay" that wasn't in reference to their sexual orientation? Even the OED labels the "lighthearted and carefree" definition as "dated" ...

As for "the kids"' usage of the term, "wayward, laughable and ludicrous" derives from a derogatory stereotypical association of those traits with homosexual people. They are in essence using the term "gay" in exactly it's definition of a homosexual male. "That's so gay" pretty much = "that's so homosexual" ...

Don't know if it's airing in your area, but there's a youth-targeted PSA campaign running (I think produced by the Ad Council) to combat the use of the term "Gay" as a general derogatory term, "That's so gay" being the focus. I've had to give my own kid a verbal upside da haid for using that phrase. But I don't believe I've heard her dis anyone by calling them "wayward, laughable, or ludicrous."

Though this thread was derailed long ago and again went down the path of what words technically do or don't mean, especially when it comes to homosexuality; I do agree that among "young people" (and many really aren't that young anymore) "gay" has also come to mean uncool or laughable. Though, I do think it originally did come from homosexuality being seen as uncool, I think it has now transcended it's origins and people call something "gay" meaning uncool/laughable with no awareness or recognition of the original negative connotation. I even have gay friends who call uncool things gay.

I would say the number one definition of gay in modern usage is "homosexual", number two being "uncool", and a distant third being that old definition that only km and his imaginary friends use in their daily parlance. (:

+1!

I know the meaning of many words I don't use in daily parlance - I'm sure that goes for all of us. As a general rule although much depends on context I take the view that misunderstanding is best avoided by using the most precise word even if there's an imprecise or ambiguous multi-purpose word that the masses tend to use more often. If you take six for instance, he thinks the word 'gay' when used to mean 'laughable' is inevitably pejorative of homosexuals although others hold that the user may in fact have intended no such derogatory connotation

km

I totally agree with you, but I can't decide whether "clown" or "schmuck" is the better alternative to "lawyer".

Lest I Forget ---> <---

Your lack of reading comprehension is showing again. I said no such thing.

Well you said that use of the word 'gay' to mean laughable "derives from a derogatory stereotypical association of those traits with homosexual people". Lanovami for example disagrees with that - he said that "people call something "gay" meaning uncool/laughable with no awareness or recognition of the original negative connotation".

You then went on to say that "They are in essence using the term "gay" in exactly it's definition of a homosexual male. "That's so gay" pretty much = "that's so homosexual". Lanovami disagrees with you on that as well - he says that gay friends of his in essence use the term 'gay' to mean not "that's so homosexual" as you maintain but "that's so uncool" as I was suggesting. The fact that you two are so far apart on what people mean when using the term 'gay' really only reinforces my point that the more imprecise a word the more scope there is for misunderstanding.

km

Oh km, your argument is so gay.

By which I don't mean that it's homosexual, just ridiculous.

That's the way it's used all the time, at least in the US.

So maybe the differences here are all about linguistic communities across the pond that speak the same langue but not the same parole.

Don't tell me, tell six.

km

Speak for your own scope. If it were a beauty pageant, you'd be crowned Miss Understanding.

I'll tell you what's wrong with "Gay": Gayphobic simply lacks the rhythm and heft of homophobic. Or heterophobic for that matter. I can see why KM has a hard time managing "Gay".

He didn't ask what was wrong with "Gay".

km

Your anal compulsive disorder is showing. If you really want so much control over the dialog — even when it's btwn two other people — I suggest you make finger puppets and lock yourself in the loo, you. Ew...

Speak for yourself.

km

I always do.

And what is it about "gay" that means "ridiculous"? Where do you suppose that meaning evolved from? And why do many people get offended by that usage?

Let's get back to this:

"No, the technical word for a same sex practitioner is 'homosexual'... words like 'gay' and 'queer' are informal alternatives but happen to have a duel meaning because they already meant something else before they were expropriated."

Indeed "homosexual" is the technical word for "homosexual". This point is not in question with anyone. However, how many gay men and women want to called by the term homosexual? Regardless of it's technical meaning it has a derogatory feeling for too many people. Gays are comfortable being called gay as opposed to the technical term.

I remember a few years back in a park in Tokyo I was talking to a man and his wife from California. He was of German stock and she was Latino, born and raised in Cal. to parents from Mexico. The husband and I were doing most of the talking and is wife was mostly listening or looking after their kids. I have been out of the US for way too long, so I was asking him and his wife about the social and economic environment in California and I kept using the word Hispanics. I noticed the husband would always, without fail use the word Latinos in any answer to me, and it seemed somewhat deliberate. Eventually, when I had a chance, I asked as nicely as I could if the term Latino was preferable and he politely told me that the term Hispanic has come to have a derogatory feel for Latinos. I made it clear that I had no knowledge or sense of this and apologized if offended anyone. We continued to talk about social issues, etc. and I never used the word Hispanic again, and I haven't used it as a matter of course since then, whether I am speaking to or near a Latino or about Latinos.

I think of it as a human right that a class of people (most certainly ones that do others no harm because of that classification) should be called by a term that they are comfortable with.

So in this case calling a person homosexual on the excuse that it is the most precise term, when the term gay is just as universally understood is disingenuous, and you, km/keymaster know it.

Yes, gay can be used to describe something as laughable or uncool, but it is always used to describe a thing that is uncool, not a person. This is something you know and have shown in your usage of it, and something everyone else here who uses the English language regularly knows (though I myself don't use the this term for something "uncool" b/c some people are offended by it b/c of it's real or imagined origins). Now, the term gay to describe a person is an extremely specific term for that person's sexual orientation. This is something you also know.

The word "discriminate" can have two very different connotations dependent on how it is used in a sentence, but which meaning the user intends is clear to any native speaker of English. You, km, when it comes to words, are a very discriminating person. But I ask you out of respect to not use words such as "a homosexual" when it is heard by many as a discriminating term. You may argue that you don't actually use the term "homosexual" in your daily parlance. If this is the case, than your defense (or defence) of it's usage is not only disingenuous it is a waste of keystrokes.

Actually, I believe I said the phrase "that's so gay" had such a derivation. The origins of the actual word "gay" to mean "male homosexual" probably did derive from stereotypical traits associated with homosexual people, although not necessarily derogatory ones. This is made obvious by the fact that some people are offended by the phrase while simultaneously content with the word itself ...

As for Lanovami's post, I personally don't see where we are in disagreement -- the bits you selected certainly aren't mutually exclusive thoughts.

I don't use "gay" in that way. It is, however, used that way regularly. Used in that way it's perfectly understandable that gays would be offended.

I think that one aspect of this discussion that needs to be clarified is that language is never ever static. Or rather the only languages that are static are ones that don't get used--Latin is pretty static, for instance. I do this with my classes all the time. For instance, the word "silly" once meant "holy." The word "starve" once meant "die," without having anything to do with food. The word "curfew" once meant "cover the fire." And so on. Anyone who wants to tie the signification of a word to one, unchanging and well defined thing is fighting a losing battle.

Just to bung things up even further:
I disagree with above ascribed definition of the Phrase
"It's so gay" as meaning "uncool" on the grounds that at
least in my opinion, gay men are usually at the cutting
edge of what is (or what WILL BE) cool since they're more
often than not responsible for setting the trends which
eventually filter into the "straight" world.

I would say they're using it in the original sense of the word... see someone with a bright and garish pair of cheap Korean trainers and it's: "oh my God, you look so gay"... or maybe they see an old newsreel of a 1930's dance hall where everyone's twisting their ankles doing the charleston and it's: "what the f... that dance is so gay".


They don't - just a small band of paranoid political correctos overthinking the phenomenon and trying to tell everyone else what to think and say.

km

Hint: If you're going to tell anyone to "speak for themselves", you ought not be attempting to speak for everyone else.

I'm just sayin'... (speaking strictly for myself, of course).

Well, I'll just say that I've personally yet to see or hear the phrase used to describe something in a positive light ;-)

More power to you in trying to turn the current usage on its head =D

So wait, now "gay" originally meant "ridiculous"? What dictionary are you using? Because in the one's I'm looking at, the closest definition of "gay" as "ridiculous" I can find is: "brightly colored; showy", which isn't *nearly* the same thing ...



Says you. =P

"Original sense of the word," as defined by the OED, first usage in 1325:



In regional usage, more or less at the same time:



Also in regional usage in the same century:



In a second sense, also in the 14th century:



And that sense easily moves into issues of display by the end of the century:



Applied to persons, a third sense, also in the 14th century:



Pejorative senses begin to appear in the early 15th century:



And given the masculinist proclivities of the European mind, those senses are initially applied to women:



The application to women who prefer same sex relations doesn't occur until 1922, in a passage from Gertrude Stein, ultimately picked up by Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde and applied increasingly to men in those relations.

The sense that you pick up on doesn't appear until the 1970s:



I guess it's not surprising that the initial usage in this sense recorded by the OED is in an issue of Skateboard.

So I wonder what exactly one might mean by "original sense of the word."

No before the homosexual connotation came in it meant light hearted and carefree, brightly coloured or showy. Someone who thinks that any of those facets of a person, thing or activity are flattering might say that he or she looks 'cool' but if they think they make the person look ridiculous they might say he or she looks 'gay'... or 'pants'.

km

So I guess that all that quotation of meanings from the 14th century onward is irrelevant in the question of what what the word means or can mean?

Well my theory is only linked to definitions of which persons who use the world 'gay' are aware.

km

A little mind reading, then?

Without ever replying to my post, but in order to strengthen your - for lack of a better word - argument, in all posts after mine you have started to make references to people being described as "gay" to mean uncool etc. when, as I stated in my previous post (and which was reflected in your usage as well before my last post) "gay" in the uncool sense of the word is used to describe a thing or action, and not a person. I am humbled to at least have had an impact on your discourse, even if you won't acknowledge me directly. Flattery will get you nowhere, however.

Now let me be clear, I understand why you didn't reply to my post beyond surreptitiously widening the usage of the "uncool" meaning of gay in your subsequent posts. It would indeed be uncomfortable to defend obstinately using a word that has become derogatory with the disingenuous pretense that it is more PC (Precisely Correct).

You're right about the term not being applied to people in that pejorative sense, lanovami. I'm not a linguist but I have a sense of how linguistic drift works, and I suspect that it would be really difficult to have a term that already means one thing when applied to people come to have a second, very different meaning in the same lexical environment. I think that's especially true when among kids being gay is becoming increasingly a fine and dandy choice. At least in the US, anyway.

Minus the comprehension...

The last time I heard it used was in March when I was taking a photograph of my students in a pub up there in Whitehall - one of the kids who wasn't in the shot came out with "try not to look so gay". That didn't mean "try not to look so homosexual" but "try not to look so ridiculous" so, yes, the term is applied in a light-hearted non-derogatory non sexual sense to persons as well as to things or actions. It's not correct to say that your more limited scope for the word was previously "reflected in my usage" because I've included it's application to persons from the start.

As for "surreptitiously widening the usage..." and all that rubbish in your last paragraph I'd say you're inventing motives that really aren't there and contradicting yourself in the process. You've already accepted that "people call something "gay" meaning uncool/laughable with no awareness or recognition of the original negative connotation. I even have gay friends who call uncool things gay." Now you're saying that use of the word "has become derogatory". That was quick - it usually takes more than a few days for meanings to be completely turned upside down.

km

Mind reading? Not really... people can't mean what they don't know but can be taken to know common and contemporary meanings.

km

That's not what he's saying but what I'm saying.... he's saying it's not appied to people in a non-pejorative sense - and of that he couldn't be more wrong.


Difficult? All people are doing is using words to reflect what's in their mind - how difficult can that be? Someone who's off drugs, off crime, being honest, had corrective surgery for kyphosis or is just plain heterosexual could declare he's 'straight' and kill five birds with just one word.

km

I read the last two posts I wrote again, and it seems perfectly obvious to me that I meant using the word "a homosexual" has come to be seen as derogatory. I even quoted a block from your own post educating us all, in case we had forgotten that "No, the technical word for a same sex practitioner is 'homosexual." My only reason for even mentioning the use of "gay" to describe something laughable was because you continue using it to try to make some point that "gay" is a less precise (and I assume less preferable) term for gay people. I am beginning to believe that in your case this may be true, as somewhere in the middle you apparently lost track of which of these two words I take issue.

But to be honest, I think your failure to grasp what I actually meant is deliberate and a deliberate obfuscation. The alternative that you are truly that obtuse is not something I accept. I have gone back and forth in this very forum with a very anti-Muslim poster who was bigoted, mean-spirited and easily refuted, but at least he made it clear what he stood for. Most of time, it is not even clear what it is you are even arguing about. Do you stand for something? Or does the imprecise use of words like "gay" and "marriage" just stick in your craw for no other reason beyond the impreciseness of words? I find the British usage of "pavement" to mean "sidewalk" very imprecise as many things are paved, but are indeed not sidewalks. However, this impreciseness itself has yet to compel me to make countless posts about it. Do you have a stance on the preciseness of the use of the word pavement? I would guess that you don't as most people don't have an issue with "sidewalks" or "pavement" in and of themselves, but it is quite obvious that you have an issue with homosexuality in and of itself, so why don't you just come out and say it? I have friends from back home who still admit they are not sure if they can completely accept homosexuality, but at least they were up front about it, and we could debate whether or not "gay marriage" should be legalized w/o talking endlessly in circles about the actual technical definition of "marriage" and never getting beyond that to anything of substance.

It's usually hard to tell. You must remember he is a barrister so a straight committed answer is asking a lot. Bad for business if there is not an argument.

Of course what do I really mean by a "straight" answer?

A telling example is it not:

Homosexual = Gay
Keymaker = Frustration

KM is like a toddler who's just discovered his own poop. He doesn't care how bad it smells. He just knows how fun and squishy it is, and so he blithely smears it all over the place and giggles with glee, leaving the adults in the room to gag and walk away in disgust.

Yeah, a somewhat gross analogy. But pretty close, methinks. And surely less heavy-handed than simply calling him out on his bigoted, homophobic, egocentric imperialistic posture (oops, I guess I just did).

I wasn't responding to your last two posts but specifically to what was then your last post. That certainly gave the impression that you were talking about the word 'gay' not homosexual not least because you were answering a post of mine where that's what I had been talking about.

However, to answer your posts in general I would point out that the word 'homosexual can't be both a correct term and a derogatory term at the same time. If anyone's uncomfortable with the use of correct terms they need to get over themselves in my opinion.

km

LOLOL Roit!

"'homosexual can't be both a correct term and a derogatory term at the same time."

That is the straightest answer I ever remember getting out of you. Thank you for stating it so directly, so that our positions could finally be clear on this: 'homosexual' CAN be both a correct term and a derogatory term at the same time. It couldn't be put more succinctly.

There are certainly other words that share the same 'duality.' An example that immediately comes to mind is 'bastard', but I digress..

And, of course, you or anyone else is free to use the word 'homosexual' as much as you like, but many people will find it derogatory for the reason I just stated above (first paragraph just after the colon).

This does not at all detract from the astuteness of your last observation; one I most heartily agree with: Every single one of us needs to get over ourselves, yet inevitably it is an endeavo(u)r at which we all fail miserably.

Period/Full Stop. Almost midnight. Good night. Cue the sig.

To deal with your other points lest I be taken as having accepted them...


Quite a few things... exposing bullcrap is certainly included.


No I was just trying to suggest how apparently inconsistent poll results can come about.


By pavement we tend to mean not just sidewalks but a walkway paved with square or rectangular concrete slabs.


How often do pavements come up for discussion? With homosexuality some of you lot just can't seem to drop it - talk about obsessed. If you were constantly challenged for the most obvious truths about pavements along the lines that your preoccupation with them is not intellectual but sexual you might be inclined to put the record straight - unless of course their accusations happened to be true.


There you go again... I appreciate that activism involves attacking those who hold a different point of view but the truth is that its the zealots doing that who really have the issue not those whose thoughts they're trying to control with smears and innuendo.


Circles? I've made my position on homosexuality generally and on gay marriage in particular quite clear on many occasions and I refer to my previous posts in that respect.

km

Well, that's certainly hogwash, since wether or not its derogatory depends entirely on the context and to another extent upon the audience. Conservatives and Republicans for years used the therm "liberal" as a derogative word even as it was the correct term to use for their opponents (I still remember George Bush Sr. leaning heavily on the "L" as he sneered-out the word ;-). Calling someone a "Nazi" is often used as a pejorative even though that is the technically correct term to use to describe someone with certain socio-political beliefs.

In the context of this discussion, using the term "gay" in a phrase such as "don't be so gay" or "that's so gay" is clearly meant as a derogative word.

Basically, almost anything can be used as a derogative word if it represents something the speaker and/or their audience is opposed to.

Lawyers. Jeesh!

;-)

Roit indeed. LOLOL right back atcha.

Spot On

No it's true.


Yeah well fortunately Conservatives and Republicans are not the arbiters of what words mean. A correct word is one that's correct for everybody whether some group or groups like it or not. Oh, and anyone with Bush's record of bigotry and ignorance can only ever flatter those they seek to criticise.


Well calling someone a Nazi who happened to be a member of that party in the Third Reich is not a derogatory statement but one of fact. Calling someone a Nazi today can be a derogatory statement but it's not one of fact because it's an incorrect use of the term. My point is that you can have one or other but not both at the same time.

km

No I'm saying it can't be. When used to describe a same sex practitioner for example or to explain what 'gay' means its not derogatory but a statement of fact. It's obvious from your example that you're getting confused between correct and incorrect uses just like six did. If you call someone a bastard because you're describing someone who was borne to unmarried parents like William the Conqueror then its a correct use of the term. If you call them a bastard simply because you think they're unpleasant then it's derogatory because it's not a true statement. More generally the conclusions you draw from one word do not necessarily apply to another because what is and isn't a derogatory term is really determined by what the great big silent majority find acceptable or not.

km

Between obfuscation and willful misunderstanding, you're at your usual impossible to converse with self. So toodles on this one.

I haven't got a clue what you're talking about... and I doubt anyone else does.

km

Mr. Pot meet Mr. Kettle.

There you go again. Speaking for everyone else. Don't you ever learn?


Save the keystrokes — I already know the answer.

Lucky you. We only get to experience His Analness from the outside, while you seem to have the *gag* inside track. Pardon the "gallows humor", oh authority on which hole to poke and where to buy children.

There you go again with your obsession with "SH!T" (coprophilia)

Then ...just when I was about to reply; "TYPICAL!"...


...I realized maybe that's the where this thread went off the rails...
You've been using the word "NATURAL" when what really was
meant to be "NORMAL" ... as in NORMAL For Each Individual...

Which brings us to Your Pet Pony... which is really what this was
all about from page one.




Amazing that you want the real brunt of the post deleted..
..but the part that's supposedly too horrific to "see the light of day"
you've made a point of reposting over a dozen times.

I know I am going to regret dipping into this again. Yes, I know, yoyo, I am a glutton for punishment.

Okay km:

"When used to describe a same sex practitioner for example or to explain what 'gay' means its not derogatory but a statement of fact."

This point, in and of itself, if the user is indeed honestly not intending to use it derogatorily, is not in dispute with anyone with an ounce of sense. We get it. Does anyone still here not get this?

Now, a year or so ago, the guy who had been sitting next to me at work for yonks showed me a picture of his family. He looks nothing like either of his two brothers who look a heck of a lot like each other. I pointed this curiosity out, and he, without much concern, admitted that he had been born "out of wedlock" and that his "father" had skipped off immediately and his mother eventually met a much nicer guy whom she married. We have talked since then about issues around his being born "out of wedlock". It is very obvious that he is in all correctness a bastard. No one would confuse this fact, but in the several times we have spoken of this I have never referred to him as a "bastard" and I would never refer to him as such because no matter how I tried to use the word "bastard" in a sentence to describe him, it would sound to him and to me as if I held negative feelings about his illegitimacy that I don't, in fact, feel. Are you still with me?

My step-brother, who is also one of my favorite people on this planet, admitted to me early on that he was gay. Having come from a pretty conservative area of the country, this was still a bit of a scandal. Being a product of my time and region, I myself had ambiguous feelings about homosexuality at that time. But my step-brother, simply by the fact of being the great human being that he was, helped me to start dealing with these ambiguous feelings earlier than I might have when he came out to me. Admittedly, it was not such a huge shock, because even at that age he had mannerisms that some gay men (certainly not all) often display. This was as obvious to others as it was to me, and he was often called "fag", "homo", and yes, when some of these people were moved to moments of eloquence they would even refer to him loudly as "homosexual" (always drawing out the "sex-u-al" part for effect). I, of course, received some of this abuse as well as I associated with him, but that is beside the point. These boys and girls, if I remember, rarely if ever referred to him as "gay", though I am sure we were all familiar with the term. He eventually made the brave choice to come out publicly in his last year of high school, which was in retrospect I think a mistake, and he was still called a "homo", "homosexual" and sometimes even "gay".

So yes, the word "homosexual" can be a correct term and a derogatory term at the same time. And yes, when used, in your words: "to explain what 'gay' means it's not derogatory but a statement of fact." However, I will probably not be using this explanatory device when my 10 year old asks me what "gay" means, because he very likely won't know what "homosexual" means either.

Don't get me wrong (I feel I need to add this "don't get me wrong" because you so often have), I do have an idea of where you are coming from, and certainly "homosexual" when used clinically is not derogatory just by it's being uttered, if the user does not intend it to be so. But that certainly doesn't mean I would use the word in regular discourse because the word has a derogatory sound to many people, gay and straight alike. And if I heard someone using this word with regularity in conversation, I would have to assume they don't get out much, or that more likely they are deliberately using that word for some reason, a very likely one being that they are bigoted towards gays or wish to appear so.

Now, where is my morning coffee..

A bald nun, a gay lawyer, and a Ravenous Bugblatter Beast walk into a bar. The bartender says, "This has got to be the weirdest joke I've ever been in..."

Something like this thread.




Presumably, you are wrong.....but I could be right.

A happy and carefree lawyer.
Now that is a rare creature.

I've never re-posted any part of that disgusting spew of yours before (more delusional rambling from you). But since you brought it up...How only the post, and not your scale-encrusted ass, was deleted is still a mystery to me. But it shoots holes in your persistent whine that the Mods are in my pocket. If that were the case, you'd have been gone and forgotten a long time ago.

But back to the point, "Watchman"... With that post — by dragging my wife and daughters into your rant — you not only set the bar lower than it's ever been set, you established new rules of engagement betwixt thee and me. Every time you come nipping at my heels, expect a fat, rolled-up Sunday paper across your cold, wet nose.

There's something for you to watch. As our friend would say, <--- Get it, Mothra?

And just to make it clear; I don't believe that the difference in people's opinions about "gays" in the military as opposed to "homosexuals" in the military is:

"because gays are perceived as persons who happen to be happy and carefree whereas homosexuals are those who indulge in same-sex activities."

I believe it is much more likely because the word "gays" to describe a sexual orientation has lost most or all of the negative connotation it may have had for most people, while the word "homosexuals" stirs up negative feelings in people because it still has negative connotations for most people.

But that does not mean you are not entitled to your theory, km.

A Personal THREAT?

That post had nothing to do with your wife & family

it was, is & will remain ALL ABOUT YOU.

BTW

is you feel so uncomfortable being called on your
mmmm doodoo kaka obsession..
get your therapist to work on a cure.


OH MY GOD!
NOW I'M DRAGGING YOUR THERAPIST INTO IT TOO!!!

get over yourself

..and stop calling people names, Fleedic

Both of you, this nonsense stops now.
I'm deleting that quote. If the original message was removed, I think it's safe to assume you shouldn't quote it- not to mention the point still stands in it's absence.

Funny, though, how much it says about YOU.

Yeah, right. It was just gallows humor, and had nothing to do with my family. But then, it's expected that you'd believe your own oral incontinence. You're one sick dog.

Hate to tell you, Antonio, but when someone crosses the line with me like that, mercy is out the window. I don't get mad. I get even. Often. Got a problem with that, I'm just as happy to follow Donna out the door.

I didn't know you cared.

It ain't about mercy. It's about forum decorum. Got a problem with that? I won't stop you from walking through that door, or myself from escorting you through it.

Any more absolutes or inquiries? Feel free to shoot me a private message. Rather, if you feel you have more to say, I insist on it, rather than having it out here.

Otherwise, as I said to both of you, keep it civil. If there's an issue, it's the moderator's job to step in, not yours to drag it further into the sewer.

Now THAT'S comedy, baby!

Well then, escort away, and jam your forum decorum. I insist on it.

-30-

Persistence noted, insistence granted.

-bravo alpha november-

MM History ~ Antonio, I can understand that it must seem irrelevant to you in this instance, but pulling the plug on Steve? You pulled the wrong one. He was out of line to repost Cel's earlier nasty attack on his family ~ Steve and his wife adopted both their daughters, that was the petri dish/Craig's list part of it, and the rest was just pure Cel.

In the immortal words of every playground on the planet? She started it. I respectfully hope you get some input from other folks and reconsider. No response necessary or expected, I get this is a Mod thing.

Lea

Steve, I don't know if you can read this, but I hope you cool off and come back. I'll shoot you an email.

As it is a Mod thing, I won't go into details, but Steve wasn't singled out. However he was also in the wrong. Taking it upon himself to escalate the issue was the wrong way to handle the situation.

This really and truly sucks.

I don't agree with any of it either.

I'll mention what I mentioned to someone earlier- it's not permanent. It's a week to cool off and assess things.

Cooler heads prevailed, vacation is over.

What you're talking about there is delivering a correct word with a derogatory tone which makes the tone derogatory but not the word. One could deliver 'gay' with the same sneering attitude but that doesn't make the word derogatory. By contrast If you call someone a 'faggot' because he's homosexual that's derogatory irrespective of the tone so the word itself is derogatory.

km

Thank you km, for finding your way in to reply amongst all this muckery. I mean it.

One could deliver the word "homosexual" or "bastard" to a gay person or someone born illegimately quite unsneeringly and I would bet you that most people would not be comfortable with it. In the specific case of both people I mentioned, they are pretty thick-skinned but I would never call them a "homosexual" or a "bastard" regardless of how unsneeringly I said it, because I sincerely doubt it would be taken well at all. One has to consider the listener's feelings as well, and whether a term is derogatory or not is in the ear of the behearer, in my opinion. I refer back to my story of the couple I met in a park a few years back. We all make mistakes, but I would not willfully continue using a word that is considered derogatory by others, because it would show a lack of respect, and it also gives someone an excuse not to listen to me at all. And I do like to talk. (:

btw, in my time and region, the word "faggot" as opposed to "fag" had such a strong connotation that I didn't hear it used very often at all, especially not directly to anyone. "Homo" and "homosexual" were words however that people had no compunction about using.

btw, I made one more comment which you may or may not have seen; I could certainly see how you might have missed it among all that mess. I will paste it again below. I was curious if you had any more thoughts on this as well.
-------
And just to make it clear; I don't believe that the difference in people's opinions about "gays" in the military as opposed to "homosexuals" in the military is:

"because gays are perceived as persons who happen to be happy and carefree whereas homosexuals are those who indulge in same-sex activities."

I believe it is much more likely because the word "gays" to describe a sexual orientation has lost most of the negative connotation it may have had for most people, while the word "homosexuals" stirs up negative feelings in people because it still has negative connotations for most people.

But that does not mean you are not entitled to your theory, km.

I take the view that the prejudiced listener will hear 'gay' and 'homosexual' with equal contempt whereas the objective listener will hear them both with equanimity. If that's right then the word itself is not influential where its meaning is generally agreed.

km

O...K... a person sufficiently prejudiced (against gays I assume?) would indeed hear both the word "gays" and the word "homosexuals" with equal contempt. And an "objective listener", if there is such a thing, would hear both terms with equanimity. So both of these groups, whatever the hell they mean, would hear both terms with equanimity, just a different type of equanimity... I don't see why anyone could have any other view of the two "listeners" that you posit.

I still, and I give you my solemn promise that I really am trying, have absolutely no idea how this in anyway addresses (let alone explains) the question of why a poll conducted with two different groups of people (Democrats if it matters) got such skewed results when only the word "gays (and lesbians)" was transposed with "homosexuals" when asked what people thought about having gays/homosexuals serve openly in the military.

On the off chance that you were making a general statement relating to our discussions (which I doubt because your latest post immediately followed my post reintroducing the topic of the two polls) I would still have a hard time wondering exactly or even inexactly it is that you are addressing.

Reading comprehension was always the area I scored highest in on aptitude tests, but admittedly it's been a decade or two...

I didn't even read the poll - mainly because Reboot gave the impression that it would be a bit of a chore to wade through it with all the links. My observations stem from this - that if I were asked whether gays should serve in the military or whether homosexuals should I'd give the same answer because to me it's the same question. If people give different answers it seems to me that they're distinguishing between the meanings of the two terms which focuses attention on 'gay' as the prime suspect because it's the least precise. As to prejudiced persons showing equanimity I'd say that would be unduly flattering of them.

km

The possibility that you were one of the objective listeners that you posited did occur to me. Well, I am fairly certain I would have given the same answer whichever term was used as well. It may prove that we are objective listeners, yet it also proves we would understand the unambiguous meaning of the word "gay" in the question we were given, lest we risk giving two answers for the two words, regardless of our objectiveness (or prejudice for that matter).

The objectiveness of the listeners in these polls is exactly what I believe led to the difference between the two polls. It had absolutely nothing to do with some people in the poll which used the word "gays" getting confused whether the question was asking about "homosexuals" or people who are happy/colorful and/or laughable.

You can call me a lesbian, you can call me a homosexual just don't call me late for a beer!