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Racialism redux

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Steve Hayes - 31 Jan 2010 01:32 GMT
Some time ago we had a discussion about "racism" and "racialism", and when the
former began to replace the latter.

I've just been re-reading Trevor Huddleston's "Naught for your comfort", first
published in 1956.

He uses "racialism" and "racialist" throughout.

I recall hearing "racism" in the early sixties, but didn't begin using it
regularly until the early 1970s.

Huddleston also uses "gay" only in the sense of happy, light-hearted,
carefree.

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Evan Kirshenbaum - 31 Jan 2010 02:34 GMT
> Some time ago we had a discussion about "racism" and "racialism",
> and when the former began to replace the latter.
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> I recall hearing "racism" in the early sixties, but didn't begin
> using it regularly until the early 1970s.

I don't really have any data about when "racialism" started to die
out, but for when the other terms arose, the OED cites "racist" to
1926 and "racism" to 1932.  Looking at Google Books, I can push
"racism" back to 1902:

   [Attn Jesse Sheidlower: OED antedating]

   Segregating any class or race of people apart from the rest of the
   people kills the progress of the segregated people or makes their
   growth very slow.  Association of races and classes is necessary
   in order to destroy racism and classism.

                        _Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting
                        of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of
                        the Indian, 1902_, 1903

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Jerry Friedman - 31 Jan 2010 19:02 GMT
...

> I don't really have any data about when "racialism" started to die
> out, but for when the other terms arose, the OED cites "racist" to
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
>                          of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of
>                          the Indian, 1902_, 1903

I was surprised to see that "classism" is older than "racism".  I'd
always thought that it was invented by analogy to "racism", though the
NSOED would have told me I was wrong.  The quotation you found
suggests it might be the other way around.

--
Jerry Friedman
Cheryl - 31 Jan 2010 21:48 GMT
> ...
>
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
> --
> Jerry Friedman

I always thought that the idea of classes, usually with the implication
that some classes are good and others are bad goes right back to the
cave men, with the class of good hunters getting better seats near the
fire and the class of clumsy or lazy hunters shivering out in the cold.
Racism, on the other hand, developed more slowly from associating the
conviction that those strangers over there were kind of weird with some
identifiable characteristic of said strangers - their occupation, or
language, or skin colour.

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Cheryl

Jerry Friedman - 01 Feb 2010 01:12 GMT
> > ...
>
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
> cave men, with the class of good hunters getting better seats near the
> fire and the class of clumsy or lazy hunters shivering out in the cold.

I think that's different, unless the good hunters negotiated with
neighboring bands instead of the bad hunters who are better
negotiators, and unless the good hunters' lazy or clumsy children
still got the good seats after their parents' deaths.

> Racism, on the other hand, developed more slowly from associating the
> conviction that those strangers over there were kind of weird with some
> identifiable characteristic of said strangers - their occupation, or
> language, or skin colour.

Certainly the idea of social classes is older than the idea of races,
but I was surprised about which one the "-ism" suffix first got used
for, since I'd heard "racism" long before "classism".

I'm interested in the origin of the concept of "race" in the modern
American sense (quite similar, I think, to the sense used in other
countries).  Does it predate the use of the word "race" in the late
18th century (NSOED)?  Did Shakespeare, for example, distinguish
between races or just between skin colors?  In modern America, people
with the same skin color can easily be considered to belong to
different races.  And what do Shem, Ham, and Japheth have to do with
all this?

--
Jerry Friedman
Arcadian Rises - 01 Feb 2010 02:53 GMT
[...]

>�Did Shakespeare, for example, distinguish
> between races or just between skin colors?

Absolutely, see "The Merchant of Venice"
Steve Hayes - 01 Feb 2010 03:45 GMT
>[...]
>
>>?Did Shakespeare, for example, distinguish
>> between races or just between skin colors?
>
>Absolutely, see "The Merchant of Venice"

Absolutely?

Is this car red or green?

Absolutely!

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Arcadian Rises - 01 Feb 2010 04:11 GMT
> On Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:53:11 -0800 (PST), Arcadian Rises
>
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>
> Absolutely!

Right!

That reminds me the this joke: White House chef asked Prez Clinton
what would he prefer as entree: Chicken a la Kiev, or Veal Parmesan?
Clinton's answer was an emphatic "Yes, sure".
Steve Hayes - 01 Feb 2010 03:43 GMT
>I'm interested in the origin of the concept of "race" in the modern
>American sense (quite similar, I think, to the sense used in other
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>different races.  And what do Shem, Ham, and Japheth have to do with
>all this?

In South Africa, for the first 20 years of the 20th century, "racialism"
usually referred to language and culture, and specifically to prejudice of
English-speaking South Africans (white) against Dutch-speaking (white) South
Africans and vice versa. I think it was the communists who widened it to
include people of other skin colours.

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Evan Kirshenbaum - 01 Feb 2010 03:55 GMT
> I'm interested in the origin of the concept of "race" in the modern
> American sense (quite similar, I think, to the sense used in other
> countries).  Does it predate the use of the word "race" in the late
> 18th century (NSOED)?  Did Shakespeare, for example, distinguish
> between races or just between skin colors?

The OED first cites the sense of "a group of several tribes or
peoples, regarded as forming a distinct ethnic set" to 1612, so the
word was a bit late for Shakespeare, but may have been starting to be
heard around the end of his life.  The sense that starts to equate it
with things like skin color doesn't show up until the eighteenth
century.

From Google Books, I see "the Negro race" back to 1728, in John Gay's
_Fables_.  I first see "African Race" in a 1742 translation of Bede's
_Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation_.  (At the beginning of
chapter 5 of book 1, if anybody wants to compare with the Latin.)

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Steve Hayes - 01 Feb 2010 08:25 GMT
>> I'm interested in the origin of the concept of "race" in the modern
>> American sense (quite similar, I think, to the sense used in other
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>_Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation_.  (At the beginning of
>chapter 5 of book 1, if anybody wants to compare with the Latin.)

That could be interesting.

When did Africa come to refer to the whole continent rather than, roughly,
modern Tunisia?

Before Bede's time, or after?

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CDB - 01 Feb 2010 15:11 GMT
>> I'm interested in the origin of the concept of "race" in the modern
>> American sense (quite similar, I think, to the sense used in other
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
> beginning of chapter 5 of book 1, if anybody wants to compare with
> the Latin.)

The text reference is "Severus, genere Afer, Tripolitanus, ab oppido
Lepti".  So he was "African by kind" (my favourite word again), and
"African" could refer to a Libyan from the town of Leptis Magna: not
Morocco, but I guess still just North Africa.

"Genus" is related to notions of birth, but whether that means it's
the equivalent of ModE "race", for Bede, I have no idea.  "African by
birth" might be another translation.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IjoYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA156&dq=Bede+Historia+Eccles
iastica

&lr=&cd=4#v=onepage&q=Bede%20Historia%20Ecclesiastica&f=false
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ykqkog6
Jerry Friedman - 01 Feb 2010 23:08 GMT
> > I'm interested in the origin of the concept of "race" in the modern
> > American sense (quite similar, I think, to the sense used in other
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> word was a bit late for Shakespeare, but may have been starting to be
> heard around the end of his life.

I was asking more about the concept than the word.  Would Shakespeare
have been more upset if one of his daughters had married a Chinese man
than if she'd married a European man of similar coloring?  How did his
contemporaries feel about such things?  Does /The Merchant of Venice/
tell us?  Is there any way to know?

> The sense that starts to equate it
> with things like skin color doesn't show up until the eighteenth
> century.
>
> From Google Books, I see "the Negro race" back to 1728, in John Gay's
> _Fables_.
...

That seems to be about ants, though the phrase might imply that he
thought of black people as constituting a race.

--
Jerry Friedman
Robert Bannister - 02 Feb 2010 01:05 GMT
>>> I'm interested in the origin of the concept of "race" in the modern
>>> American sense (quite similar, I think, to the sense used in other
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> contemporaries feel about such things?  Does /The Merchant of Venice/
> tell us?  Is there any way to know?

I'm sure he'd have been more upset if his daughter married a Spaniard or
worse, a Frenchman.

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Rob Bannister

Evan Kirshenbaum - 02 Feb 2010 04:15 GMT
>> The sense that starts to equate it with things like skin color
>> doesn't show up until the eighteenth century.
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> That seems to be about ants, though the phrase might imply that he
> thought of black people as constituting a race.

It's definitely supposed to be allegorical, though exactly for what is
hard to tell at this remove.  The fable ends, after the turkey, who
has just told her young to eat their fill of ants and bemoaned that
people eat turkeys, with

   An Ant, who climb'd beyond his [sic] reach,
   Thus answer'd from the neighb'ring beech.
   Ere you remark another's sin,
   Bid thy own conscience look within.
   Controul thy more voracious bill,
   Nor for a breakfast nations kill.

That could easily be a commentary on black slavery.

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CDB - 02 Feb 2010 17:14 GMT
>> I'm interested in the origin of the concept of "race" in the modern
>> American sense (quite similar, I think, to the sense used in other
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
> beginning of chapter 5 of book 1, if anybody wants to compare with
> the Latin.)

The text reference is "Severus, genere Afer, Tripolitanus, ab oppido
Lepti".  So he was "African by kind" (my favourite word again), and
"African" could refer to a Libyan from the town of Leptis Magna: not
Morocco, but I guess still just North Africa.

"Genus" is related to notions of birth, but whether that means it's
the equivalent of ModE "race", for Bede, I have no idea.  "African
by birth" might be another translation.

> http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IjoYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA156&dq=Bede+Historia+Eccles
iastica

> &lr=&cd=4#v=onepage&q=Bede%20Historia%20Ecclesiastica&f=false
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/ykqkog6

Sorry if this appears twice.  It didn't show up on eternalseptember
and, since it was informational and not terribly silly, I thought I
would give it a second chance.

I should have added that the "Severus" referred to was the emperor
Septimius Severus, whose bust, pictured in the Wikiparticle linked to,
doesn't seem to support the "race" interpretation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimus_Severus
Cheryl - 01 Feb 2010 10:45 GMT
> Certainly the idea of social classes is older than the idea of races,
> but I was surprised about which one the "-ism" suffix first got used
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> different races.  And what do Shem, Ham, and Japheth have to do with
> all this?

I don't think the modern sense of race = skin colour is all that old.
It's not that long ago that it simply meant a group of people with
something in common, from race of men (ie all humans, including females)
to race of carpenters (who had their trade in common). I think race =-
skin colour got a start from the special case of race = language/ethnic
group, and then got a bit of extra help from the first burst of
enthusiasm over genetics and eugenics, which added the implication that
there was something deeper difference between the groups than mere
appearance or skill or speech.

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Cheryl

James Hogg - 01 Feb 2010 10:57 GMT
>> Certainly the idea of social classes is older than the idea of races,
>> but I was surprised about which one the "-ism" suffix first got used
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
> there was something deeper difference between the groups than mere
> appearance or skill or speech.

Raymond Williams says something along these lines in "Keywords".
http://books.google.com/books?id=S6U03FvYZYkC
If you type "race" in the search box you get to page 248 where the essay
begins.

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James

Jerry Friedman - 02 Feb 2010 00:02 GMT
> >> Certainly the idea of social classes is older than the idea of races,
> >> but I was surprised about which one the "-ism" suffix first got used
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
> > there was something deeper difference between the groups than mere
> > appearance or skill or speech.

The first uses, in the 18th century, may have had something to do with
the legal system in the British colonies that said Africans and their
descendants could be slaves but Europeans and their descendants
couldn't, and that Indians weren't citizens.  Wikipedia cites Gerald
Sider (1993), /Lumbee Indian Histories: Race, Ethnicity, and Indian
Identity in the Southern United States/.

> Raymond Williams says something along these lines in "Keywords".
> http://books.google.com/books?id=S6U03FvYZYkC
> If you type "race" in the search box you get to page 248 where the essay
> begins.

I'm surprised he doesn't mention the current majority view among
anthropologists: that despite appearances, there's no scientifically
valid way to divide humanity into races, as the patterns of genetic
diversity don't justify them.  I don't know that this question is
settled, but he could mention it.

--
Jerry Friedman
James Hogg - 02 Feb 2010 06:53 GMT
>>>> Certainly the idea of social classes is older than the idea of races,
>>>> but I was surprised about which one the "-ism" suffix first got used
[quoted text clipped - 34 lines]
> diversity don't justify them.  I don't know that this question is
> settled, but he could mention it.

Raymond Williams wrote that in 1976.

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James

Jerry Friedman - 02 Feb 2010 15:50 GMT
> >>>> Certainly the idea of social classes is older than the idea of races,
> >>>> but I was surprised about which one the "-ism" suffix first got used
[quoted text clipped - 36 lines]
>
> Raymond Williams wrote that in 1976.

Ah.  Well, at that point it was at least a significant minority view.

"Since 1932, an increasing number of college textbooks introducing
physical anthropology have rejected race as a valid concept: from 1932
to 1976, only seven out of thirty-two rejected race; from 1975 to
1984, thirteen out of thirty-three rejected race; from 1985 to 1993,
thirteen out of nineteen rejected race. According to one academic
journal entry, where 78 percent of the articles in the 1931 /Journal
of Physical Anthropology/ employed these or nearly synonymous terms
reflecting a bio-race paradigm, only 36 percent did so in 1965, and
just 28 percent did in 1996."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28classification_of_human_beings%29#Current_v
iews_across_disciplines


citing Leonard Lieberman, Rodney C. Kirk, and Alice Littlefield,
"Perishing Paradigm: Race—1931-99," /American Anthropologist/ 105, no.
1 (2003): 110-13.  That may cover only the journal survey, not the
textbook survey.

--
Jerry Friedman
Mark Brader - 31 Jan 2010 02:35 GMT
Steve Hayes:
> I've just been re-reading Trevor Huddleston's "Naught for your comfort", first
> published in 1956.  He uses "racialism" and "racialist" throughout.
...
> Huddleston also uses "gay" only in the sense of happy, light-hearted,
> carefree.

"Only".  Does he talk about homosexuality in the book at all?
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Steve Hayes - 31 Jan 2010 19:29 GMT
>Steve Hayes:
>> I've just been re-reading Trevor Huddleston's "Naught for your comfort", first
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
>"Only".  Does he talk about homosexuality in the book at all?

Not much, other than possible allusions.

My point is, though, that he used "gay" is if it were unambiguous, and not
likely to be misunderstood.

I only became aware of the use of "gay" to mean homosexual in 1961, and then
it seemed to me to be confined to a gay subculture. It was only some years
later that it seemed to become part of general speech.

And, as I said, Huddleston, writing in the 1950s, seems to regard it as
unambiguously meaning happy or carefree.

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James Silverton - 31 Jan 2010 20:00 GMT
Steve  wrote  on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:29:45 +0200:

>> Steve Hayes:
>>> I've just been re-reading Trevor Huddleston's "Naught for
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>>
>> "Only".  Does he talk about homosexuality in the book at all?

> Not much, other than possible allusions.

> My point is, though, that he used "gay" is if it were
> unambiguous, and not likely to be misunderstood.

> I only became aware of the use of "gay" to mean homosexual in
> 1961, and then it seemed to me to be confined to a gay
> subculture. It was only some years later that it seemed to
> become part of general speech.

> And, as I said, Huddleston, writing in the 1950s, seems to
> regard it as unambiguously meaning happy or carefree.

In the nineteenth century, "gay" did mean taking compensation for sex. I
think I remember it being used quoting testimony of a lady of easy
morals in London, "But I'm not gay". I think this was in "The Girl with
the Swansdown Seat" by Cyril Pearl . "Gay" was prison slang to describe
a homosexual before it became common.

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Robert Bannister - 01 Feb 2010 01:31 GMT
> Steve  wrote  on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:29:45 +0200:
>
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
> the Swansdown Seat" by Cyril Pearl . "Gay" was prison slang to describe
> a homosexual before it became common.

I'm always suspicious of these claims. I suspect that, while that
meaning may have existed, it was not in common use. A number of English
poets use "gay" in the happy sense over quite a period of time.

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Rob Bannister

James Silverton - 01 Feb 2010 01:38 GMT
Robert  wrote  on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:31:32 +0800:

>> Steve  wrote  on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:29:45 +0200:
>>
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
> number of English poets use "gay" in the happy sense over
> quite a period of time.

I quite agree with you. I was only mentioning the alternative uses of
"gay" and I tend to deplore the fact that I cannot employ a very useful
word.

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Steve Hayes - 01 Feb 2010 03:56 GMT
> Robert  wrote  on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:31:32 +0800:
>
[quoted text clipped - 39 lines]
>"gay" and I tend to deplore the fact that I cannot employ a very useful
>word.

In South Africa (I can't speak for other places), the PRIMARY meaning of
"gay", used without qualification as in Huddleston's book, was the "happy,
care-free" one.

I became aware of the homosexual meaning in 1961, and from then until 1965 I
heard it used mainly by people for whom "gay" was a self-description, and who
were members of gay sub-cultures, or by their friends who knew they were gay.
In 1966 I went to the UK, where people mostly seemed to use "queer".  

So in general writing, the term "gay" was unambigious in the 1950s. I'm just
wondering when it became ambiguous -- my guess is sometime in the 1970s, but
that may have happened at different times in different parts of the
English-speaking world. I *think* I recollect seeing the homosexual meaning in
underground newspapers and magazines published in the USA in the late 1960s
and early 1970s.

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Robert Bannister - 01 Feb 2010 01:29 GMT
>> Steve Hayes:
>>> I've just been re-reading Trevor Huddleston's "Naught for your comfort", first
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
> it seemed to me to be confined to a gay subculture. It was only some years
> later that it seemed to become part of general speech.

I am not able to date it so accurately, but I would have thought I was
not conscious of the homosexual meaning until some time later than 1961
- perhaps awareness came in the late 60s, but I'm sure that it was not
in general usage until well into the 70s and that, like many fashions,
it came in very quickly. Whether there was some well-publicised case
around that period, I don't remember.

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Rob Bannister

Steve Hayes - 01 Feb 2010 04:16 GMT
>I am not able to date it so accurately, but I would have thought I was
>not conscious of the homosexual meaning until some time later than 1961
>- perhaps awareness came in the late 60s, but I'm sure that it was not
>in general usage until well into the 70s and that, like many fashions,
>it came in very quickly. Whether there was some well-publicised case
>around that period, I don't remember.

I can date my awareness of it precisely because a friend told me he had
decided to be gay, as an experiment (one he continued for the rest of his
life) and introduced me to some of his gay friends, and I learnt some of their
argot. Obviously in their circle the usage had been around for some time, and
it made sense of the personal ads columns in the Sunday newspaper, which
frequently carried ads about "gay bachelors" looking for love and
companionship. The people who placed those ads quite clearly expected the in
group, but not the general public, to understand them.

As I said earlier, I think it entered general usage towards the end of the 60s
or in the early 70s, possibly through underground newspapers and magazines in
the US.

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sjdevnull@yahoo.com - 01 Feb 2010 07:47 GMT
> >I am not able to date it so accurately, but I would have thought I was
> >not conscious of the homosexual meaning until some time later than 1961
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
> or in the early 70s, possibly through underground newspapers and magazines in
> the US.

There's a line in the popular Cary Grant/Katherine Hepburn movie where
the aunt asks why he's wearing a women's negligee and he replies
"because I've gone gay" or something to that effect.  That was in the
late 1930s.

Ahh, IMDB has the quote:
Mrs. Random: But why are you wearing *these* clothes?
David Huxley: Because I just went gay all of a sudden!

I was going to cite this as evidence that the term was at least
somewhat widely understood by the late 1930s, but Wikipedia offers the
(unconvincing, IMO, given the delivery of the line) theory that he
might just have been using it in the old "happy and festive" sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bringing_Up_Baby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay offers a Noel Coward example clearly
referencing Oscar Wilde in 1929, but that one could easily have been
intended to sail over the heads of the general populace.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=gay&searchmode=none claims
that it was in use in America by homosexuals c. 1920.
Peter Moylan - 01 Feb 2010 12:47 GMT
>> As I said earlier, I think it entered general usage towards the end of the 60s
>> or in the early 70s, possibly through underground newspapers and magazines in
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
> (unconvincing, IMO, given the delivery of the line) theory that he
> might just have been using it in the old "happy and festive" sense.

I don't have any good evidence for this, but I've had the impression
that there was a "gay" culture even in the 1930s. This culture had
nothing to do with homosexuality, except insofar as the latter might
have been a subculture of the former. The impression I have is that
"gay" extended the meaning of "happy and festive" to something like
"eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die". That attitude would
have included, among other things, sexual promiscuity. If heterosexual
promiscuity was included, it would not have been a big step to embrace
homosexual promiscuity.

If this theory makes sense, then "gay" meaning "sexually promiscuous"
might well have preceded "gay" meaning "homosexually promiscuous".

The inclusion of non-promiscuous homosexuals has always seemed to me to
be a modern invention. Most homosexuals are not "gay" in the older meaning.

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Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia.      http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.

sjdevnull@yahoo.com - 01 Feb 2010 20:10 GMT
> sjdevn...@yahoo.com wrote:
> >> As I said earlier, I think it entered general usage towards the end of the 60s
[quoted text clipped - 27 lines]
> If this theory makes sense, then "gay" meaning "sexually promiscuous"
> might well have preceded "gay" meaning "homosexually promiscuous".

The latter is certainly the case.  I think the timeline's a little
off, though--the "sexually promiscuous" sense dates much earlier,  and
by the 1920s there was certainly a thriving homosexual subculture.  At
least in the US, the 1920s and early 1930s marked a brief period of
relative acceptance for gays--so-called "pansy clubs" operated openly,
without major fear of legal repurcussions, and acts like Gene Malin
even broke through to become fairly popular in the mainstream.  By the
mid-1930s, America's brief flirtation with acceptance had ended, and
it'd be the late 1960s before things really started to open up again.

The flip-flopping had a recognizable impact even outside overtly gay
acts--mainstream Hollywood actors like William Haines and Jimmy
Shields, who had felt comfortable enough in the 1920s to live openly
gay lives, found their careers over when society changed its mind.
Pat Durkin - 01 Feb 2010 20:50 GMT
>> sjdevn...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> >> As I said earlier, I think it entered general usage towards the
[quoted text clipped - 60 lines]
> Shields, who had felt comfortable enough in the 1920s to live openly
> gay lives, found their careers over when society changed its mind.

Sorry, I am late with this. I know the 19th C usage was mentioned a
few days ago.

"'Twas once in the saddle I used to go dashing,
'Twas once in the saddle I used to go gay.
First to the dram-house, and then to the card-house,
Got shot in the breast, and I'm dying today."

And, of course, we discussed Streets of Laredo a month or so ago.
Robert Bannister - 02 Feb 2010 01:12 GMT
>>> I am not able to date it so accurately, but I would have thought I was
>>> not conscious of the homosexual meaning until some time later than 1961
[quoted text clipped - 29 lines]
> might just have been using it in the old "happy and festive" sense.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bringing_Up_Baby

That is certainly how I would have understood it.

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Rob Bannister

 
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