[OT] Languages and cultures (was Re: survey)

[Andre Garzia]

Congrats Bernard, happiness to you and yours!!!! :-D

Now, the important piece, when is the party?

Cheers!
Andre

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 8:21 AM, Bernard Devlin <bdrunrev at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 9:14 AM, Sarah Reichelt
> <sarah.reichelt at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think it is changing again. My teenage sons refer to anything they
>> don't like as being "gay".
>> So a difficult assignment is "gay"; missing the bus is "gay"; a
>> teacher who growls at them is "gay".
>>
>> It doesn't have to be a person, and while it has certainly not
>> reverted to it's original meaning, it is losing it's homosexual
>> connotations. But maybe that is just here in Australia.
>
> Not just limited to Australia, I've heard that usage on South Park for
> years.  I've no idea if South Park was creating or following a trend.
>
> Clearly we've now lost the use of that charming little word.  Although
> in all truth, I think homos had been feeling 'gay' was a rather 70s
> word and was now as unfashionable as flared corduroy trousers.   (Hang
> on, I think they came back in and went out again a few years ago...)
>
> Anyway, homos have got a variety of other epithets (hostile and/or
> clinical) by which they can described.  Now that the majority of
> people describe themselves as 'straight' or 'heterosexual', we are in
> a different world from the late 1960s when gay people (along with
> black people) started to declare terms they wanted the majority to use
> to describe these minorities.  I still have some old manifestos of the
> Gay Liberation Front -- they are hilarious.  But I think the world I
> grew up in was already quite different from the world where those were
> written.
>
> Back then straight people would describe themselves as normal i.e.
> they didn't have a term for themselves.  There's even videos from the
> 1980s of people being interviewed on the streets of London, and when
> asked "are you heterosexual" they would reply "no, I'm married".
> Since then we've had metrosexuals, transexuals ('men giving birth'?),
> gay coming to mean 'naff''.  I doubt there's anyone left in the UK who
> doesn't know the difference between heterosexual/homosexual.
>
> Personally I've always thought queer was suitable for gay people --
> I've always found people who wanted to be normal to be rather creepy.
> Being oneself I can understand, but suppressing individuality to go
> with the crowd seems to reduce us to sheep.  Mind you, queer would
> then become an inclusive term that meant 'those who resist being
> normalized'.  I'm sure there's more than a few people on this list who
> would describe themselves as 'queer'.
>
> Having married a man recently, I certainly feel less than outré than
> in my youth.
>
> Bernard
> _______________________________________________
> use-revolution mailing list
> use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences:
> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
>



-- 
http://www.andregarzia.com All We Do Is Code.