Origins of "faggot"

[samclem]

John,

The expression "fry a fagot" is actually cited in the OED from 1621, and was in a polemic written by Richard Montagu against John Selden and Selden's arguments against taxes.

The exact cite was

1621 BP. R. MONTAGU Diatribae 44 You deserued to fry a fagot.

Fyodor. The origin of the term fagot to refer to male homosexuals is American. British gangs burning rivals had nothing to do with it.

[John W. Kennedy]

Actually, "fry a faggot" has citations in the OED under both "faggot" and "fry".

[Fyodor]

So you say with great confidence and authority:

"Fyodor. The origin of the term fagot to refer to male homosexuals is American. British gangs burning rivals had nothing to do with it."

Yet the Staff Report under discussion says:

"Still unexplained is how a Britishism jumped the ocean in a short period of time to acquire a new meaning in the U.S."

Whatever, thanks for setting me straight man.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by Malacandra

Can I just say that as a native-born Englishman who's by no means badly read, I am very familiar with the use of "fag" to mean a junior boy at public school (English usage) who runs errands for a senior, but not "faggot"? I have, for instance, read Stalky & Co (Kipling) from cover to cover and seen many references to fags but none to faggots.

"Fag" also means "cigarette", as stated, or "irksome task" ("it's a fag having to write this out") no doubt by association with the school usage, whence also "fagged out" (mildly exhausted). "Faggot" is synonymous with none of these.

Brit-side, "faggot" means "small savoury meatball, the composition of which you're probably happier not knowing" or, more antiquated, "bundle of firewood" - the latter presumably from the Italian. IME, "faggot"="homosexual" is considered an Americanism, though a widely understood one.

You lucky lucky kids- you get to hear it straight from the (well, a) horse's mouth. As a native-born Englishman who wwent to public schools which openly acknowledge fagging (to the point of a "fagging rota" drawn up weekly by the Housemaster being hung on the House noticeboard), I have to say that Malacandra has it quite right. "Fag" is in common usage to signify a junior student who is assigned various unpleasant tasks- these days, they tend to be things like mopping the dining hall floor rather than more... personal duties (ie. bog-seat (toilet seat) warming when its cold). "Fagging" refers to the practice thereof. "Faggot" is a disgusting meatball-like creating, a bundle of kindling, or what Americans call a gay man. If you mentioned a faggot to the average Brit, they'd take it to mean a homosexual. If you mentioned a fag, they'd hand you a cigarette. I still do, and I've lived Stateside nearly nine years.

Perhaps most importantly, I've never heard of fagging representing sexual favours. Read Roald Dahl's memoir of public school life, Boy - he wrote it about his experiences in the thirties and he doesn't mention sexual favours either.

I'm not saying that the prison-sex phenomenon is unknown to boys-only schools, just that fagging isn't related to it.

[John W. Kennedy]

Originally Posted by Fyodor

So you say with great confidence and authority:

"Fyodor. The origin of the term fagot to refer to male homosexuals is American. British gangs burning rivals had nothing to do with it."

Yet the Staff Report under discussion says:

"Still unexplained is how a Britishism jumped the ocean in a short period of time to acquire a new meaning in the U.S."

Whatever, thanks for setting me straight man.

We know that "faggot"=woman/animal crossed the ocean; it's in American books. We don't have any evidence that the other did.

[samclem]

Fyodor Sorry to have sounded imperious. To build on what JWK said above, the term fagot to mean a homosexual is almost certainly American in origin. Why, we don't yet know. If it were British, one would have expected to see it in print there somewhere in the 1900-1945 period referring to homosexuals, but it doesn't. Rather, it appears in US cites with some frequency in this period.

[SkipMagic]

Originally Posted by Chronos

In order for this to make sense, we must simultaneously assume that witches do not burn well, and that homosexuals do burn well. Does this make it clearer why this notion is bizarre?

So, what you're saying is that... homosexuals are made of wood, and therefore they must float?

Like small rocks? And churches?












_{Aww... c'mon! You had wood, witches and burning all in one post. A Python reference was destiny thrown by some watery tart--never mind.}

[Malacandra]

Originally Posted by dutchboy208

"Faggot" is a disgusting meatball-like creating,

May you be forgiven! I admit that, like English sausages (maybe all sausages), haggis, black pudding, and perhaps one or two other foodstuffs, it's best not to enquire too closely as to the composition... but I could demolish a small mountain of faggots, hot or cold, and relish every crumb. "Disgusting", forsooth!

[Northern Piper]

mmmmmm - haggis and black pudding in one meal - mmmmm

just doesn't get better than that, especially when the white bits are particularly white today.

[Chronos]

Aww... c'mon! You had wood, witches and burning all in one post. A Python reference was destiny thrown by some watery tart--never mind.

Clearly, I'm losing my touch. Thank you for correcting this grievous oversight on my part.

[Malacandra]

Originally Posted by Northern Piper

mmmmmm - haggis and black pudding in one meal - mmmmm

just doesn't get better than that, especially when the white bits are particularly white today.

It helps to take your mind off the rainfall. And fancy that, breaking the handle on a Spear & Jackson!

[Malacandra]

Originally Posted by SkipMagic

So, what you're saying is that... homosexuals are made of wood, and therefore they must float?

Like small rocks? And churches?












_{Aww... c'mon! You had wood, witches and burning all in one post. A Python reference was destiny thrown by some watery tart--never mind.}

So a homosexual weighs the same as a duck?

[Bookkeeper]

Just speculating, but perhaps the American use of "faggot" was reinforced by a stereotyped link of English public schools and "fags" with homosexuals in American popular culture?

[t-bonham@scc.net]

Originally Posted by Malacandra

So a homosexual weighs the same as a duck?

Ah! But the question is, does it echo when a homosexual quacks?


(This whole thread is getting pretty silly.)

[Northern Piper]

mmmm - duck haggis...

[Shadowsrose]

Digging up an old post.

From what I have been able to find Faggot is originally along the lines of a small bundle of sticks or herbs to burn or possibly seep in water. A Faggot is also a lace pattern in knitting which maybe where the connection to the shrewish woman comes from.

[gamerunknown]

Originally Posted by Really Not All That Bright

I'm not saying that the prison-sex phenomenon is unknown to boys-only schools, just that fagging isn't related to it.

While Boy was written late enough for Roald Dahl to confess to performing sexual duties (he'd certainly elucidated other improprieties at the public school) with his reputation remaining intact, there were still social pressures which could have curtailed his desire to do so. It's been a while since I read it, did he reveal other sexual aspects of his childhood in his autobiography? I would be interested in seeing any light shed on the meme of public school sexual favours.

Originally Posted by Evil Meister

For some reason this doesn't go down to well in our New York office!

My uncle told me of his chagrin on first visiting England and being asked if he wanted to pop out for a fag...

[Ignatz]

Then there's the Russian one

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...584C7D&first=1

[bennevis]

Originally Posted by John W. Kennedy

At best, the "faggot"-from-burning theory is a wild guess without an atom of solid evidence to back it up. At worst, it's a deliberate lie.

The "staff of eminent scholars, educators, and specialists" who assembled my 1937 edition of Webster's Universal Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language does not agree with you. Under "fagot, faggot" n:
1. A bundle of sticks, twigs, or small branches of trees, used for fuel or for raising batteries, filling ditches, and other purposes in fortification; a fascine.
2. A bundle of pieces of iron for remanufacture, or of steel in bars.
3. A person formerly hired to take the place of another at the muster of a military company or to hide deficiency in its number when it was not full.
4. A term of contempt for a dry, shriveled old woman. [Eng. Slang.]
5. The punishment of burning at the stake, as for heresy.
6. A badge representing a fagot, worn on the sleeve in the middle ages by those who had recanted heresy, to show the punishment they had so narrowly escaped.

There is also the term "fagot-vote" n: In Great Britian, a vote procured by the purchase of property under mortgage or otherwise, so as to constitute a nominal qualification without a substantial basis.

So this clearly documents the association between:
1. Bundles of sticks called fagots
2. Burning heretics with the use of fagots
3. Physically labeling lapsed heretics with little fagots
4. Using the term fagot derisively for old women, who were often the victims of the fagot fires
5. Using the term fagot to denigrate men who were beneath you, to the point of being both contemptible and expendable

Mr. Piper's cite of Blackstone, above, clearly establishes that gay men were considered heretics and burned at the stake. To imply that gay men alone escaped all of the contemptuous connotations associated with the victims of the inquisitor's sadism vexes reason.

The fact that the usage first appeared in print in 1914 is moot. The cite from Blackstone, above, refers to the entire topic as "that horrible sin, which must not be spoken of (given a name) among Christians." The verb "nominandum" is the gerundive, indicating an absolute necessity and imperative. Nearly a century and a half after Blackstone, Oscar Wilde was dragged before the court on charges of gross indecency. The prosecution did not even have the words to describe what he was atually supposed to have done, and could only muster the arcane "love that dare not speak its name." Wilde's response was similarly sublime.

Under such absolute proscriptions, where would the use of the term "faggot" to describe a gay man be printed? In what context would it be used? What sort of document would we find it in?

To illustrate the taboo against committing such terms to print, the above referenced 1937 unabridged dictionary does not contain the word "homosexual". It jumps right from "homorgan" to "homosporous", even though the term "homosexual" had been coined some 40 years earlier.

And the etymology of the term is certainly from the Latin fax and its cognate fascis which literally means a bundle of sticks. See "fascine" in definition 1, above.

[samclem]

Originally Posted by bennevis

The "staff of eminent scholars, educators, and specialists" who assembled my 1937 edition of Webster's Universal Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language does not agree with you. Under "fagot, faggot" n:
1. A bundle of sticks, twigs, or small branches of trees, used for fuel or for raising batteries, filling ditches, and other purposes in fortification; a fascine.
2. A bundle of pieces of iron for remanufacture, or of steel in bars.
3. A person formerly hired to take the place of another at the muster of a military company or to hide deficiency in its number when it was not full.
4. A term of contempt for a dry, shriveled old woman. [Eng. Slang.]
5. The punishment of burning at the stake, as for heresy.
6. A badge representing a fagot, worn on the sleeve in the middle ages by those who had recanted heresy, to show the punishment they had so narrowly escaped.

There is also the term "fagot-vote" n: In Great Britian, a vote procured by the purchase of property under mortgage or otherwise, so as to constitute a nominal qualification without a substantial basis.

So this clearly documents the association between:
1. Bundles of sticks called fagots
2. Burning heretics with the use of fagots
3. Physically labeling lapsed heretics with little fagots
4. Using the term fagot derisively for old women, who were often the victims of the fagot fires
5. Using the term fagot to denigrate men who were beneath you, to the point of being both contemptible and expendable

Mr. Piper's cite of Blackstone, above, clearly establishes that gay men were considered heretics and burned at the stake. To imply that gay men alone escaped all of the contemptuous connotations associated with the victims of the inquisitor's sadism vexes reason.

The fact that the usage first appeared in print in 1914 is moot. The cite from Blackstone, above, refers to the entire topic as "that horrible sin, which must not be spoken of (given a name) among Christians." The verb "nominandum" is the gerundive, indicating an absolute necessity and imperative. Nearly a century and a half after Blackstone, Oscar Wilde was dragged before the court on charges of gross indecency. The prosecution did not even have the words to describe what he was atually supposed to have done, and could only muster the arcane "love that dare not speak its name." Wilde's response was similarly sublime.

Under such absolute proscriptions, where would the use of the term "faggot" to describe a gay man be printed? In what context would it be used? What sort of document would we find it in?

To illustrate the taboo against committing such terms to print, the above referenced 1937 unabridged dictionary does not contain the word "homosexual". It jumps right from "homorgan" to "homosporous", even though the term "homosexual" had been coined some 40 years earlier.

And the etymology of the term is certainly from the Latin fax and its cognate fascis which literally means a bundle of sticks. See "fascine" in definition 1, above.

If I"m reading your post correctly, you're suggesting that the slang meaning of the word (homosexual) is British in origin rather than American? Because the British were afraid to use that term in print? I rather doubt it. I think you can find slang words published in British sources that would suggest that isn't the case. They're not exactly a delicate race.

[Full Tilt Boogie]

Faggot - its explanation, definition and word origin - including a link to its American usage.

[John W. Kennedy]

Originally Posted by bennevis

4. Using the term fagot derisively for old women, who were often the victims of the fagot fires

No they weren’t.

Mr. Piper's cite of Blackstone, above, clearly establishes that gay men were considered heretics and burned at the stake

...and that the practice had ceased at least a century before Blackstone’s birth.

The fact that the usage first appeared in print in 1914 is moot.

I do not think you know what “moot” means. Assuming that you are using it to mean “immaterial” or “irrelevant”, there is not an etymologist in Earth who would not laugh at you.

[eastcheap]

Looks to me like the subject has been mooted ad nauseam...

[bennevis]

Originally Posted by samclem

If I"m reading your post correctly, you're suggesting that the slang meaning of the word (homosexual) is British in origin rather than American? Because the British were afraid to use that term in print? I rather doubt it. I think you can find slang words published in British sources that would suggest that isn't the case. They're not exactly a delicate race.

I'm not suggesting anything. I am documenting a well established provenance of the word "faggot" being used as a term of contempt and derision for a certain class of both men and women, and this usage comes directly from burning heretics (et al.) at the stake. If anyone one wishes to suggest that gay men, who were burned at the stake as heretics, miraculously and singularly escaped this appellation, they need to provide more substantive proof than an arguement from the negative.

The fact that the term "faggot" to designate a gay man may have been first documented in print in 1914 proves that it was in use before that date, but provides no more details or timeline about its usage. Given the absolute proscription against even speaking about the topic of homosexuality, one would hardly expect such a discussion to be committed to print.

But for those who place so much importance in that 1914 cite, here is a challenge for you. Let's see a listing of all the references to gay men from English sources in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th century. The use must clearly refer to gay men in context, and not simply be a term we use now in that sense. It must also clearly refer to a man who is sexually attracted to another man. Obtuse references to someone being effeminate or flamboyant, or general derision won't cut it. Neither will convoluted and ambiguous terms like "crimes against nature" or "unnatural acts".

I'll patiently await the evidence, but I won't hold my breath.

[John W. Kennedy]

Originally Posted by bennevis

I'm not suggesting anything. I am documenting a well established provenance of the word "faggot" being used as a term of contempt and derision for a certain class of both men and women, and this usage comes directly from burning heretics (et al.) at the stake.

You have not demonstrated any such thing. You’re making a wild guess that has been suggested over and over again, and rejected over and over again by professional etymologists.

[bennevis]

We have been waiting for over two months now, and no one has managed to come up with a single unambiguous mention of a male homosexual from an English printed work from the 16th, 17th, 18th or 19th centuries. Four centuries encompassing a vast array of printed material of all sorts, and yet not one single citation! That would be truly remarkable, save for the clear proscription against even mentioning such people, let alone committing details of their existence to print.

This completely deflates the "no cite before 1914" canard.

[John W. Kennedy]

If you really think that Marlowe’s Edward II is ambiguous, you are not very sensitive to language. And this speech, in particular, makes it painfully clear that homosexuality was far from obscure:

Nephue, I must to Scotland, thou staiest here.
Leave now to oppose thy selfe against the king,
Thou seest by nature he is milde and calme,
And seeing his minde so dotes on Gaveston,
Let him without controulement have his will.
The mightiest kings have had their minions,
Great Alexander lovde Ephestion,
The conquering Hercules for Hilas wept,
And for Patroclus sterne Achillis droopt:
And not kings onelie, but the wisest men,
The Romaine Tullie loved Octavius,
Grave Socrates, wilde Alcibiades:
Then let his grace, whose youth is flexible,
And promiseth as much as we can wish,
Freely enjoy that vaine light-headed earle,
For riper yeares will weane him from such toyes.

[ABraut]

Originally Posted by bennevis

Let's see a listing of all the references to gay men from English sources in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th century.

A comprehensive list would not fit, but here is some information about homosexuality in the 19th Century:

Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century
Book description:

The nineteenth century was a golden age for those people known variously as sodomites, Uranians, monosexuals, and homosexuals. Long before Stonewall and Gay Pride, there was such a thing as gay culture, and it was recognized throughout Europe and America.

Graham Robb, brilliant biographer of Balzac, Hugo, and Rimbaud, examines how homosexuals were treated by society and finds a tale of surprising tolerance. He describes the lives of gay men and women: how they discovered their sexuality and accepted or disguised it; how they came out; how they made contact with like-minded people.

Nineteenth-Century Departures from Earlier Homosexual Writing

Yet nineteenth-century English homosexual literature also departs from earlier homosexual writing in several significant ways.

Most immediately, it is more abundant and persistent. The homosexual literature of the 140-year period that makes up the long eighteenth century in England (1660-1800) was limited to the work of about fifteen men and women, whereas in the next hundred years at least sixty authors produced homosexual writing if we count minor as well as major figures.

...

Significant differences and changes also occur within nineteenth-century English homosexual literature. Based on current knowledge, there is considerably more male than female homosexual writing in the century, though the age's lesbian writing contains one of the era's frankest and most detailed homosexual documents.

...

Moreover, there are marked increases in both the amount and relative openness of English homosexual writing in the course of the century, with a relatively stable stream of writing for the first half of the century followed by significant, if not totally uniform, "bursts" occurring every decade from 1850 on.

http://www.glbtq.com/literature/eng_lit2_19c.html

homosexual (adj.)
1892, in C.G. Chaddock's translation of Krafft-Ebing's "Psychopathia Sexualis," from Ger. homosexual, homosexuale (by 1880, in Gustav Jäger), from homo-, comb. form of Gk. homos "same" (see homo- (1)) + Latin-based sexual.
"Homosexual" is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it. It is, however, convenient, and now widely used. "Homogenic" has been suggested as a substitute. [H. Havelock Ellis, "Studies in Psychology," 1897]
Sexual inversion (1883) was an earlier clinical term for it in English. The noun is recorded by 1895. In technical use, either male or female; but in non-technical use almost always male. Slang shortened form homo first attested 1929.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=homosexual

It really doesn't look like there was an "absolute proscription against even speaking about the topic of homosexuality" in the hundred years, or so, before 1914.

[ABraut]

A quick word for Malacandra et. al

[Simple Linctus]

Over here you can buy Mr Brain's Pork Faggots.

They're not very nice* but somehow there being in the supermarket kind of makes me feel good that there is a fightback about words being taken over by hatred. Similar thing when anyone users the word niggardly.

*I assume, I've never actually eaten them. I've eaten pork faggots of course but not Mr Brain's version. It is a reasonable assumption that frozen processed meat will be rubbish I think.