What means to ‘sound gay’ - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• SOUNDS GAY, I’M 
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• THIS IS WHY SOME MEN ‘SOUND GAY’ – EVEN IF THEY’RE NOT
• SOUNDS GAY, I’M IN
• SOUNDS GAY I’M IN SHIRT
• DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?
• I'M GAY SOUND

SOUNDS GAY, I’M 

“My bs and your law practice ought to make a pretty gay team, Dave. “I remember” the pearl-clutchers are wont to say, “when beg gay jt meant beg happy. Siarly nonsensil is the assumptn that this humble three-letter word enjoyed a centuri-long untroubled existence as a synonym for “happy” before gettg -opted by the Gay Lguistics Agenda* some time around 1967.

Earlit of the word gay.

By the 13th and 14th centuri gay was ed adjectivally of anythg (or anyone) bright, lourful, or generally reee, and this fn has ed persevered for a signifint perd of time tanm wh s later variants. “Som gay broght yow th vp on the viroot”. Gay also appears at a noun this perd, somethg which may be more regnisable today pound forms such as nosegay – a ltle bundle of flowers tradnally given as a gift.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

Now obsolete, gays would have been ivolo amements for children such as toys or picture books. As recently as 1922, ventor Leo Gerstenzang veloped the first mercial tton swabs and lnched them on an unspectg public as Q-Tips Baby Gays. Bright beme gdy and reee beme rels and sooner or later a gay person uld jt as easily be unrstood as a lasciv or hedonistic one.

It’s worth emphasisg that the two terpretatns uld fortably -exist: Troil & Crisey (1385) Chcer scrib a lover’s heart as “sh and gay”, whilst  The Miller’s Tale (1390) a “gay gerl” is a wanton one.

It’s this latter fn which is believed to have veloped to our ntemporary unrstandg of gay as referrg to homosexualy. From the early 17th century, to go gay was to viate om the straight and narrow favour of a gdier, more dissolute liftyle. Charl Victor Fremy was sometim very, very gay.

THIS IS WHY SOME MEN ‘SOUND GAY’ – EVEN IF THEY’RE NOT

In the US, gog gay had a particular meang among Quakers: renouncg pla livg and givg onelf over to pleasur such as drkg, gamblg, and dancg ( other words, behavg like the Church of England).

In the late 18th-19th centuri, a gay woman uld also be a prostute and a gay hoe a brothel – both phemistic given the word’s more mastream terpretatns.

SOUNDS GAY, I’M IN

Gay the 20th century. “…and the whole rough and tumble of homosexual activy”. Given the word’s pluraly of terpretatn – and the forced clanste nature of non cis/het relatnships – there is some bate as to the first rerd e of gay meang a homosexual person or qualy.

SOUNDS GAY I’M IN SHIRT

This meang is generally unrstood to have emerged as US slang, and the OED c s first example as Gert Ste’s Geography and Plays (1922): “Helen Furr and Gea Keene lived together then… They were together then and traveled to another place and stayed there and were gay very gay there, jt gay there.

They were both gay there. Openg wh queer in Gert Ste discsg a relatnship between women rais another nsiratn: then, as now, gay is eher clive or exclive of the lbian muny pendg on your source.

It’s rag (gay) ts and dogs. In the 17th and 18th centuri, for stance, the art of poetry and lerary cricism was known as the gay science (I’m sayg nothg) and the perd om 1890-1900 was, due to rapid prospery for some, looked back on as The Gay Neti (or, ed, The Nghty Neti). In the early 20th century, ‘falsi’ (padd bosom-enhancers) were known as gay ceivers, while gettg gay was to be overly faiar or prumptuo.

DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T

And don’t go fettg the difference between a gay dog (a self-dulgent Lothar) and a gay t (an apprentice vagrant, who acts as lookout for his olr master). Most of are faiar wh the stereotype of a “gay voice. Do gay men actually sound different than straight men?

The are the qutns a new documentary, “Do I Sound Gay?

” It’s a fascatg and nuanced film, which the filmmaker, David Thorpe,  his feelgs about his voice to look at attus toward homosexualy. It rais a plited discsn about gay pri, lgerg homophobia, disguised misogyny, and the extent to which we all alter the image that we prent to the the film begs, Thorpe is disturbed bee he realiz he don’t like his voice any more.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?

He rri out thoughtful nversatns wh his iends and proment gay and lbian figur – cludg Gee Takei, David Sedaris, Dan Savage, Margaret Cho and Don Lemon – about what means to “sound gay. But so dog, v everyone to thk about what their own voice says about who they are, where they me om, and where they want to science of “the gay voice”To start wh, the stereotypil “gay voice” isn’t necsarily a study published 2003, Ron Smyth, a lguist at the Universy of Toronto, found that participants readily separated rerdgs of 25 diverse voic to those who “sound gay” and those who “sound straight.

I'M GAY SOUND

” People picked up on featur of the gay stereotype – voic that were higher and more melod were more often labeled "gay. In Smyth's study, people rrectly gused a man’s sexualy about 60 percent of the time, only a ltle better than another small study at the Universy of Hawaii, both gay and straight listeners were equally as likely to misclassify people as gay or straight.

In fact, the straight men wh so-lled gay voic weren't aware that people thought they sound gay at turns out that what most people perceive as a stereotypil "gay voice" is jt a male voice that sounds more stereotypilly feme -- maly, higher pched and more melod. And that often has more to do wh the voic that a person intified wh as they grew up, rather than and other rearchers say some men, both gay and straight, velop more feme voic bee they are fluenced by women when they are young.

But that don't mean that they are gay. "Some men wh 'gay voic' are straight, and some men wh 'straight voic' are gay, " says Smyth.