Gay deceivers

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@eburacum45

I’m not saying that I think that this was the procession, but it seems apparent that the person who wrote the text in your link made this connection for whatever reason. Perhaps the apparent fact that the ‘dissolute’ usage had not yet vanished holds the answer. There is no mention of blithe cheerfulness in that link.

I honestly don’t know what you mean by this. The falsies sense is explicitly differentiated from the “earlier sense”.

In any case, here’s the full page from the OED online.* geezer1, you should read it all the way through to see why your acronym is laughable.

*I have no idea why a 1943 date is given on that page. Dawn Powell’s A Time to Be Born was published in 1942.

[snowmaster]

So this is not about Number Of The Beast then?

[eburacum45]

The falsies sense is explicitly differentiated from the “earlier sense”.

Yes, using the abbreviation cf, which means ‘compare with’ or ‘by way of comparison’. There seems to be an implied link. Why do you think that there is not?

[WhyNot]

@Exapno_Mapcase

Rake would be applied almost exclusively to men, as in this definition:

A rake, short for rakehell, is a historic term applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, frequently a heartless womaniser. Often a rake was a prodigal who wasted his (usually inherited) fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process. The rake was also frequently a man who seduced a young woman and impregnated her before leaving, often to her social or financial ruin.

There may have been a sense in which gay meant rake which meant loose morals. But gay wasn’t used for women at the time any more than rake was. The gay in gay deceivers was undoubtedly the older sense of merry.

@eburacum45

I’m not sure, either, but there it is, in your link. How else do we get from ‘a deceitful rake or dissolute person’ to a padded bra?

Is it that a padded bra is going to deceive a heartless womanizer who is trying to make it past the bra? He’s fooled into thinking her breasts are larger than they are. The bra is deceiving the gay (rake). Gay…deceiver. Seems pretty straightforward.

[eburacum45]

That thought crossed my mind, too. I can conceive of a folk etymology along those lines. But I have to admit, it is pretty tenuous.

[Ranger_Jeff]

@MrDibble

The expression existed long before its use for falsies, though. Whiskey in the Jar is my cite

My versions of Whiskey use “bold deceiver”, but since it’s a traditional folk song, lyrics can be somewhat fluid.

Musha rin du-rum do du-rum da, Whack fol de daddy-o,
Whack fol de daddy-o, There’s whiskey in the jar.

[geezer1]

You seem rather sure of yourself, exapno . . .

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@WhyNot

Is it that a padded bra is going to deceive a heartless womanizer who is trying to make it past the bra? He’s fooled into thinking her breasts are larger than they are. The bra is deceiving the gay (rake). Gay…deceiver. Seems pretty straightforward.

Actually it seems pretty convoluted. Why not use gay in its straightforward meaning? Especially since Powell uses it that way five other times in the book.

She was very gay when she rejoined her table. Amanda’s gayety consisted of laughing a great deal whether the conversation merited it or not

A bender with somebody else’s boyfriend was usually a gay, reckless occasion…

and ferns everywhere, and an array of modern paintings that were gay and expert

because she’d had them on a Bermuda boat once and had a very gay time.

she stepped into the taxi without a word for the grueling afternoon she had given her old friend, merely a gay wave of the handkerchief

It’s possible that Gay Deceivers has a completely different origin that makes it just coincidental. But the phrase still doesn’t work for me in your interpretation. Falsies are deceivers that are gay; they aren’t designed to fend off gay deceivers.

@geezer1

You seem rather sure of yourself, exapno . . .

Acronyms are a favorite form of folk etymology. Virtually none of them are ever true, and they’ve all been exhaustively studied. As has gay. I give you a 1000% guarantee that gay does not derive from an acronym, although it is obviously possible that somebody might have made an acronym from gay.