This post is gay

This post may be a little rambling, as I have no idea where I'm going to go with it seeing as it's fairly English geeky in nature, concerning my fascination with words and what they do. And it starts with Facebook. Stay with me.

I started a group a while ago called "I Still Use Slang From The 1990s". As part of this group I've built up a list of '90s slang terms and their meanings, adding many that are suggested by the members of the group. However, I found myself faultering when one member suggested the word "gaylord" as a '90s insult. I was torn. On the one hand, "gaylord" comes from a blatant homophobic etymology. On the other, I knew the person suggesting it almost certainly had absolutely no sexual meaning in the word. I logically also considered the inclusion of "gay" as a slang term, but with much the same problem. So I did what I almost always do when I want to find out more about something: I looked on Wikipedia.

And here's what Wikipedia had to say. This I found incredibly intriguing, as not only does it give what I think of as the "playground" usage of the word a technical name ("pejorative non-sexualised"), but it cites a fairly recent example from the media of where the use of "gay" in this sense was called into question and the usage was defended. Not defended by any old fly-by-night organisation either - defended by the BBC no less.

I was gripped at this point. I felt like I was witnessing etymology as it happened. Very few words in my lifetime have undergone such a radical addition to their accepted meanings (and, as The Times article states at the end, a meaning almost the opposite to that which the word had originally). However, with Wikipedia being a less-than-credible source for information, and one news article seeming fairly flimsy, I turned to the big kahuna: the Oxford English Dictionary. And here's what I found:

"gay, adj., adv., and n. slang (chiefly U.S.). Foolish, stupid, socially inappropriate or disapproved of; ‘lame’."

It's in the OED. A draft addition admittedly, but one with several examples and that is actually being considered, which taking into account how many words are rejected from the OED is a fairly substantial backing for the pejorative non-sexual meaning.

So, how do I feel about all this. Moving past my English graduate geekiness about watching words transform, I don't really have a huge problem with this becoming an accepted meaning of "gay". I try to refrain from using it as I think there are better words to use, but then I do that with a large amount of words. Also, there are people who, when talking to them, I would avoid using the word "gay" like that as I know they wouldn't like it being used. Again, there is a large collection of other words that I do that with too.

But in terms of the actual meaning, I have no problem at all. For a start, it's a slang term that is clearly in common use, and that's how meanings and words are created and always have been - by being used. In terms of looking at it with historical examples, there's an obvious candidate word: "fuck".

Again, good old Wikipedia gives a decent grounding on this word's background. And, like "gay", it's in the OED. "Fuck" is a very old word, most likely coming from Anglo-Saxon, and has a fascinating history that would take hours to do justice to. But like many words now considered offensive, "fuck" began as merely a word to describe something - in this case, the act of having sex. Over the centuries it was regarded as more offensive, until receiving taboo status that was lifted only relatively recently. But "fuck" began with only one meaning as a verb. It's now arguably one of the most versatile slang words in English. It can be a verb and a noun, an adjective and an adverb - it can even be used in tmesis to add emphasis to a polysyllabic word ("abso-fucking-lutely"). "Fuck" is a word that originally did not offend, gained offensive meaning, and has developed in its various meanings.

So why should "gay" be any different? Yes, I'm sure it will offend some people, but there are a great many of those words around already. Who are we to state that "gay" can't join them? If we stopped everything that offended someone, the world would be incredibly bland. I'd like to know how "gay" is used in a hundred years, or even less. Its transformation is something I find extremely interesting.

And if you're wondering, "gaylord" and "gay" both made it into the Facebook group word list, albeit with disclaimers.