The 4-minute post

[dotinthesky]

I'm unprepared for today's cold spell, my lips are chapped, and I'm wondering why perfectly intelligent breeders straight people insist on using the word gay in a derogatory form:

Did you see her outfit last night? She looked sooooo gay!

Oh my God! Backstreet Boys are soooo gay!

I was, like, on the phone to my friend Chad and he said the gayest thing!


We are not amused. By "we", I mean gay people who have grown up knowing that something was slightly different about them, who had effeminate voices (like myself) and had to put up with other kids calling them names. Why do you want to squash us like that? In any case, "gay" means happy - so why try to bastardize the word and make it negative?

Are you one of those people that reads Vice magazine because you are soooo cool, and you feel soooooo post-modern and above caring? The people who I've seen using the word "gay" in a pejorative form are people who have gay friends. Maybe everyone is so sophisticated and beyond caring. Maybe I'm guilty too because I've made mix tapes for my friends with Patti Smith's song "Rock and Roll Nigger".

Should you and I not care about words anymore?

Comments

[missarrow.livejournal.com]

I think that English has to suffer through how people use it...more specifically, the word 'gay' is in a weird limbo where several different slang meanings compete with each other for usage. To be honest, when I say something is 'gay' (I'm guilty), I am not even sure what I mean. I certainly don't have any actual part of my brain actively considering a comparison with a homosexual. At the same time, I know that I can't claim to use a word without considering or realizing its meaning...

I also think the evolution of language is, at once, an incredibly sophisticated and incredibly dispicable process. :D

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

It's true, words are almost changing their meanings too fast - and perhaps gay is just one of them. Just look at the word queer too, how it was once very derogatory and has now been co-opted by the gay movement.

My main beef seems to be the schizophrenic use of the word: applying it for negative things and experiences on one hand, followed by a descriptive use of a friend or loved one. It's like that other word "bitch" - which can be used to denote power but also put a woman down (depending on who's using it, I guess.)

I vote for more consistency in word-usage so I don't have to take so much time deciphering people's intentions!