The history of the word “gay” | The Gayly

Contents:

• GAY (ADJ.)
• GAY
• THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”
• THE ORIGS OF THE WORD ‘GAY’
• GAY (HOMOSEXUAL) AND GAY (HAPPY)
• MEANG OF GAY ENGLISH
• THE ORIG OF THE WORD ‘GAY’ S HOMOSEXUAL NTEXT

GAY (ADJ.)

As a surname, Philipp Gay), om Old French gai "joyful, happy; pleasant, agreeably charmg; forward, pert; light-lored" (12c. The suggtn of immoraly the word n be traced back at least to the 1630s, if not to Chcer:But oure bed he was so sh and gay. ) begs to appear psychologil wrg the late 1940s, evintly picked up om gay slang and not always easily distguished om the olr sense:After discharge A.

He was not happy at the farm and went to a Wtern cy where he associated wh a homosexual crowd, beg "gay, " and wearg female cloth and makp. 240]The associatn wh (male) homosexualy likely got a boost om the term gay t, ed as far back as 1893 Amerin English for "young hobo, " one who is new on the road, also one who sometim do jobs.

"A Gay Cat, " said he, "is a loafg laborer, who works maybe a week, gets his wag and vagabonds about huntg for another 'pick and shovel' job. Gay ts were severely and celly abed by "real" tramps and bums, who nsired them "an ferr orr of begs who begs of and otherwise preys upon the bum — as were a jackal followg up the kg of beasts" [Prof.

GAY

McCook, "Tramps, " "The Public Treatment of Pperism, " 1893], but some acunts report certa olr tramps would domate a gay t and employ him as a sort of slave. In "Soclogy and Social Rearch" (1932-33) a paragraph on the "gay t" phenomenon not, "Homosexual practic are more mon than rare this group, " and gey t "homosexual boy" is attted Noel Erske's 1933 dictnary of "Unrworld & Prison Slang" (gey is a Sttish variant of gay) "Dictnary of Amerin Slang" reports that gay (adj. Rawson ["Wicked Words"] not a male prostute g gay reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostut) London's notor Cleveland Street Sndal of 1889.

Ayto ["20th Century Words"] lls attentn to the ambiguo e of the word the 1868 song "The Gay Young Clerk the Dry Goods Store, " by U.

THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”

[John Boswell, "Christiany, Social Tolerance, and Homosexualy, " 1980]As a teen slang word meang "bad, ferr, unsirable, " whout reference to sexualy, om (n. In Middle English meant "excellent person, noble lady, gallant knight, " also "somethg gay or bright; an ornament or badge" (c.

Robson was an openly gay sger-songwrer who performed unr the name Jonty Dream, his iend Tenille Clarke wrote for Brish Vogue.

In terviews at the time, Ileana ced both Rodrigo and his sister — along wh shiftg views her district — as fluenc on her evolutn on gay rights. In May, the Temecula Valley Unified School District’s board voted 3 to 2 to reject a new curriculum that clud discsns on the gay rights movement and mentned Harvey Milk, the first out gay man elected to public office California. That same year, Pieters beme a natnal spokperson for AIDS awarens and gay polil activism after his historic terview wh televangelist Tammy Faye on her broadst, which fied the work's homophobic tennci.

THE ORIGS OF THE WORD ‘GAY’

For centuri, gay was ed monly speech and lerature to mean happy, reee, bright and showy, and did not take on any sexual meang until the 1600s. At that time the meang of gay as reee evolved to imply that a person was unrtraed by morals and prone to nce and promiscuy. In the 1890s, the term “gey t” (a Sttish variant of gay) was ed to scribe a vagrant who offered sexual servic to women or a young traveler who was new to the road and the pany of an olr man.

This latter e suggts that the younger man was a sexually submissive role and may be among the first tim that gay was ed implyg a homosexual relatnship. In 1951, gay appeared the Oxford English Dictnary for the first time as slang for homosexual, but was most likely ed this way “unrground” at least 30 years earlier. ” This le (ad-libbed by Grant) n be terpreted to mean that he was behavg a happy-go-lucky or lighthearted way but is accepted by many as the first e of gay to mean homosexual a mastream movie.

When gay is ed today to mean stupid or unsirable ( has only been ed this way sce the 1990s), rri wh a history of negative judgment and rigid ias about who or what is acceptable. It’s Pri Month and one of the most lourful words the English language – wh more makeovers than Madonna and more dramatic life stori than Liza Mnelli – is the word ‘gay’!

GAY (HOMOSEXUAL) AND GAY (HAPPY)

Like every hero, ‘gay’ has an orig story, but even today, scholars are disagreement over the precise journey took to reach the level of fame (or famy) mands nowadays. Sometime between the 11th and late 15th centuri, ‘gai’ crossed the English Channel and end up as ‘gay’, but kept s French meangs – ‘cheerful’, ‘happy’, ‘merry’, and ‘lively’. Gay would stubbornly clg to s ‘cheerful/merry/happy’ meang for over five hundred years until well to the mid-20th century.

MEANG OF GAY ENGLISH

The age of ‘gay’ to mean ‘sexually unhibed’ creased throughout the first half of the 20th century om slang to mastream age. By the 1950s, ‘gay’ had bee a well-tablished word for scribg people who enjoyed hedonistic liftyl, be they hetero- or homosexual. By the 1970s, the term ‘gay man’ had bee firmly entrenched s current meang, referrg only to ‘homosexual men’, which was a far cry om jt a hundred years earlier, when meant ‘womaniser’ or ‘sexually unhibed man’.

’ This age is found most often among younger mal North Ameri/the UK and rearch shows that young men wh iends the LGBTQ+ muny e the word ‘gay’ a much ls pejorative way than those whout. Time will tell whether this age persists or, like so many language trends, ‘gay’ might velop new forms and meangs tim to e! From a wanrg Germanic word meang ‘quick’, evolved first to ‘cheerful’, then ‘sexually unhibed’, before fally g to mean ‘homosexual’.

The word “gay” seems to have s origs around the 12th century England, rived om the Old French word ‘gai’, which turn was probably rived om a Germanic word, though that isn’t pletely known. Fast-forward to the 19th century and the word gay referred to a woman who was a prostute and a gay man was someone who slept wh a lot of women (ironilly enough), often prostut. In terms of the sexual meang of the word, a “gay man” no longer jt meant a man who had sex wh a lot of women, but now started to refer to men who had sex wh other men.

THE ORIG OF THE WORD ‘GAY’ S HOMOSEXUAL NTEXT

Gay men themselv seem to have been behd the drivg thst for this new fn as they felt (and many still do), that “homosexual” is much too clil, soundg like a disorr.

As such, was mon amongst the gay muny to refer to one another as “gay” s before this was a monly known fn (reportedly homosexual men were llg one another gay as early as the 1920s). Sce then, gay, meang homosexual male, has steadily driven out all the other fns that have floated about through time and of urse also has gradually begun supplementg the word ‘lbian’ as referrg to women who are homosexual.