Kev Maxen has bee the first male ach a US men’s profsnal sports league to e out as gay.
Contents:
GAY
):Heo is reworþe day, grace, stout, ant gay, gentil, lyf so þe iay. (She is prec daygrac, stout, and gay, gentle, jolly as the jay. 1385:Pernter his brids wise a layOf love, that ma hire herte sh and gay.
(By chance, his bird’s manner [sang] a songOf love, that ma her heart h and gay. )In recent years, however, this tradnal sense of gay has been driven out of the language by the newer sense meang homosexual. Many believe this new sense of gay to be que recent, when fact dat at least to the 1920s and perhaps even earlier.
This early existence is as a slang and self-intifyg word among homosexuals, only enterg the mastream of English the late 1960s. So how did this word meang joyful e to refer to homosexualy? Perhaps the most monly touted one is that the morn e of gay om a clippg of gayt, a slang term among hobos and erants meang a boy or young man who acpani an olr, more experienced tramp, wh the implitn of sexual favors beg exchanged for protectn and stctn.
KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
The term was often ed disparaggly and dat to at least 1893, when appears the November issue of Century magaze:The gay-ts are men who will work for “very good money, ” and are ually the Wt the tumn to take advantage of the high wag offered to laborers durg the harvt disparagg sense n be seen this catn om the 10 Augt 1895 issue of Harper’s Weekly:The hobo is an exceedgly proud fellow, and if you want to offend him, ll him a “gay t” or a “poke-outer.
”And om Jack London’s The Road, published 1907, but this passage is a reference to 1892:In a more faiar parlance, gay-ts are short-horns, chechaquos, new chums, or tenrfeet. A gay-t is a newer on The Road who is man-grown, or, at least, send possible explanatn is that the homosexual sense is an outgrowth of an earlier sense of gay meang addicted to pleasure, self-dulgent, or immoral.
This sense dat to at least 1597 when appears John Payne’s Royall Exchange:Sum gay profsors (kepge secret mns) do love there wyu […] to avoy the early 20th century, the phrase “to go gay” was e, meang to adopt a hedonistic liftyle. ] had a flamg quarrel wh her mother, who acced her of “gog gay. 1795:Those bulli who live upon whor of fashn, affect the drs and airs of men of rank and fortune, and by stttg ocsnally by the si of a gay lady, add a nsequence to her and themselv, and duce the ignorant cully to thk that miss nfers her favours on gentlemen om Mary Robson’s 1799 The False Friend:“That’s not my bs, ” replied the bailiff.