Why did “GAY” stop meang “happy” and start referrg “same sex relatnships?
Contents:
THE ORIGS OF THE WORD ‘GAY’
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’! 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. ‘Gay’ was Germanic before cid to go all French and fancy.
The prevailg theory is that ‘gay’ me om Old Germanic, origally soundg like ‘gahi’, which meant ‘fast’ or ‘quick.
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’. In The Canterbury Tal, Geofey Chcer wrote, “Why is my neighebor wyf so gay? Gay would stubbornly clg to s ‘cheerful/merry/happy’ meang for over five hundred years until well to the mid-20th century.
HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”
Unknown to many, ‘gay’ was velopg a nghty si.
When a ‘gay woman’ was a sex worker! How long have you been gay? Fanny, the lady fe cloth, has been ‘gay’ (i.
Sometime the late 17th century, ‘gay’ began to velop a sendary meang.
HISTORY OF THE WORD "GAY"
Hence, a ‘gay man’ was a man addicted to sex who equented brothels (‘gay ho’) and nsorted wh ‘gay women’ (sex workers). ‘Gay’ was slowly beg a negative word. Wh this double meang, ‘gay’ quickly expand om meang ‘sexually unhibed’ and spilled over to clu homosexual relatns.
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. But was a later, durg the 1960s, that ‘gay’ beme strongly associated wh homosexualy. 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’.