You might have a point if you had used “message board shorthand” for more than just the word “straight”. As it is, I seriously doubt that your use of this specific spelling is some kind of totally innocent happenstance. What you actually may have meant, I have no idea. Maybe you could explain instead of acting indignant, because I am truely curious.
I had a bran muffin and I’m feeling much more regular, thank you. And by the way you don’t drop kick little kittens. Everyone knows that you punt them as you would a football.
Marc
While we’re on the topic of using ‘gay’ as an insult:
Has anyone ever heard the expression ‘gay wad’? As in ‘you are such a gay wad’. It was very popular on the playground back in the eighties. Any clue what the hell it means?
IIRC, it derives from the medevial French gahwiouse, which means “maker of shoes”. In France in the 15th and 16th Centuries, shoe makers were believed to commune with evil spirits, cursing their enemies with toe jam, athlete’s foot, and other maladies. In those pre-antibiotic days, these maladies were considered extremely serious, and often resulted in amputation of the infected toes and, in rare cases, the foot itself.
Of course, my recollection could be incorrect.
Sua
My best typo ever. I will be refering to myself as such from now on.
Being a person who has used “gay” as “lame” for as long as I can remember, I cannot think of a single instance where I actually associated “gay” in the lame sense with “homosexual.” In fact, I still use it, and I never even think about it.
Had it not been for this thread, in fact, I would have never had known that I was part of a secret heterosexual conspiracy to use the principles of Ingsoc to remove homosexuality from the world by pejorative implication!
Thank you SDMB! (Sorry, Marc, I mean Straight Dope Message Board ;))
Signed,
A Poster
Cambridge MA
For our edification:
“Mankind” really doesn’t include women, contrary to usage.
“Bastard” always implies a dubious heritage.
“Balls” only implies testicles, no matter the context.
“Boob” means a person has no distinguishing characteristics other than a nipple.
“Fuck” can only be a Fruedian slip on the part of the user who is repressing their sexual frustration.
“Human” now means an animal whose communication only functions when all possible interpretations of context are assumed to be the same context.
If I could possibly squeeze more sarcasm into this post I would.
All of the people I know who use “gay” in place of “lame” are teenage boys. I’ve told them not to say that, it’s insulting to gay people and they protest “It doesn’t have to do with homosexuals! It just means something is dumb!”
And…maybe it doesn’t have to do with homosexuals. Not all words used as slang have anything to do with the orginal definition.
**Today it was wicked hot, almost 90F, and I personally thought it was unbearable. **
What does “wicked” mean in this context? Very/really. The slang has nothing to do with evil. It could just as well be wicked cold out, or the concert could have been wicked good, or I might have tried wicked hard to get back on time. Why does it mean “very”? I have no #$%&@&* idea. People have used it that way since before I was born. What does “cool” have to do with temperature? I don’t like people using “gay” to mean lame, but maybe it * is *evolving to mean something entirely different too.
My name is Kathryn. I identify myself as Kathryn.
If “Kathryn” became a common insult I would be pissed, even if no one who used it connected it with me as a person.
Think about it, what identifies you is used as an insult. I don’t care if the insulting meaning of the word is different from the alterante meaning that I identify with. I honestly wouldn’t care if it was a homonym and not even spelled the same.
It will still boil down to school children blindly useing my identity as an insult.
Now, as an individual, my personal feelings probably would have to bend. Or I’d have to change my name.
However, we are talking about a group of people who we aren’t trying to opress or irritate as they have done nothing wrong, correct? It may be just words, but the speach pattern here is insulting, and on an offhand level that worries me. We are saying that it is okay for homosexuality to be synonomous with an insult.
Well, actually, I’d rather not. Thanks.
[sub]side note to Otto: just like using nigger as a class of person makes one look like an unmannered lout, using numbers for sounds makes one look like a brainless teeny bopper. At least try for some respect for your ideas. All we get from you is what you type. Project the image you wish to have. If it is indeed 12 year old bimbo, go for it. [/sub]
Not to quibble, but I never noticed that Susans are not hired because of the implications noted in “Lazy Susan” and we don’t look down on “Cathy"s (or Kathys as the case may be” because they are, naturally, “chatty.” Women can still be dancers without everyone thinking they do it on laps.
I still pronounce “harassment” and “uranus” in the pre-PC way, too, just for kicks. And, amazingly, everyone knows what I mean.
We are marvelous creatures.
Yeah, I have to admit, as open-minded as I try and be about non-PC terminology, this one gets my goat. Not literally, of course. Referring to stupid things as “gay” implies that all gay things are stupid.
It’s really that simple. Imagine you are that preteen kid who’s been using “gay” as an insult for years. Imagine puberty creeping up on you, and with it the realization that you’re attracted to other guys. How happy are you going to be that you’re “gay”? How likely to deal with it? How much more likely would you be to think less of yourself?
It seems using the word Polack has fallen out of favor, and very rightly so, as an insult. When someone did something stupid, and a friend jokingly said “You polack!” weren’t Polish people right to be offended? What’s the difference between that slur, and the current usage of “gay”?
erislover What do you mean pre pc way? Is there another way to say harassment and uranus?
I’ve always found that the teens where I live do mean to insult gays when they use gay as an insult. But they don’t mean the person is homosexual. To show that they think the person is homosexual they say “I think he is actually gay”.
Harassment → hare’ es ment (PC), her ass’ ment(pre PC…or something)
Uranus → Yer’ anus (short “a”, accepted pronounciation), yer anus (like “butt” anus, not “accepted” pronounciation…or whatever)
I laughed out loud at the “actually gay” part. That is an experience I can certainly share.
So, transmutation of “gay”:
Happy, with an alternate usage of promiscuous.
Homosexual, with an alternate usage of lame. Lame, of course, in the “sucks” sense. Wait, “sucks” in the “is bad” sense… but “bad” [sub] not really implying “evil” as such, but more like…blah blah blah[/sub]
Boy our language sure is muddled. 
How do we manage not to piss everyone off each time we open our mouth?
Your sensitivity to the feelings of others underwhelms me.
Esprix
Well yeah. Uranus is know supposed to be pronouced Yer-ah-nus and not Yer anus- I’m assuming in reponse to the pain and anguish of thousand of science teachers sick of being laughed at by high school students. But I’m unclear about how this is a matter of political correctness.
And I didn’t know “harrassment” was ever an issue.
**
[/QUOTE]
At http://www.merriam-webster.com you’ll find both pronounciations of the word harassment. They even have a neato little link to a .wav file of someone pronouncing it both ways.
I am unaware of the actual motiviation to change the pronounciation. I just remember that, seemingly out of nowhere, newscasters on television started removing the accent on “ass” and placed it, instead on the first syllable.
Well, I normally pride myself on being able to empathize, or at least sympathize, with people’s feelings on most matters.
I’m not up to doing so on this matter, however. “Happy” still means happy, and is largely not associated with lasciviousness, promiscuity, or other hidden agendas that the word “gay” has had wrapped up in it since the dawn of its usage.
I see no leaning toward associating homosexuals with “lameness”.
Though Cecil has certainly said his bit on the topic, I would like to make a quick series of comments on the matter.
When we wonder how “lame” could become a part of this, I turned to “licentious.”
And here we have the link, perhaps. The second definition seems to correspond to “lame.”
However, if using the terms is truly so horrifying, I would appreciate more edification. I am not above changing my opinion on anything.
Good advice.I am glad that everyone seems to understand each other a little better now. I certainly meant no offense to you or anyone else. 
[nitpick]
I just wanted to clarify that, to avoid confusion/offence, I actually don’t use the word other than to mean merry or homosexual. But I know others that do. I was just pointing out (quite clumsily initially) that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions when using a text only medium that links many different people of many different cultures.
[/nitpick]
I hate it when people say that something is “right”. I’m a left-hander, and being left-handed is part of my identity. I even used to subscribe to Left Hander magazine (y’know, the one that opened “backwards”). When people say I’m not doing something “right”, it offends me. Sure, they aren’t deliberately offending me, but since when does intent matter in cases of offensive words?
(If you don’t already know, I tend to think that words themselves are just words. Only if they are used to offend should they be considered offensive.)
Hmm… Maybe we should start refering to poorly-reasoned posts as “Lefties”?
Really, that doesn’t make sense. That’s like saying I’d be offended if I drew a line and someone said it was straight. If someone were to look at the drawing as a whole, and said “that’s gay,” I probably would be.
So in context of your little scenario, it wouldn’t matter if people say it’s “right” when you do it correct. It’d be more like they said it’s “left” when it’s incorrect. And not just incorrect, but sick, disgusting, screwed-up, wrong, insane, or any of the other connotations generally attributed to “gay” in that context.
Oh yes, I am sure that the sort of thing teenagers are likely to consider worthy of mockery are those that show disregard for strict rules of correctness. You know how those young people are always such sticklers for etiquette. Please. I’ve heard “That is SO gay!” plenty of times, and it has never, not once, been in reference to someone who showed disregard for strict rules of correctness. Quite the contrary, in fact.
I don’t see how anyone could in good faith claim that the use of “gay” as a term of derision is unrelated to the use of “gay” as a synonym for “homosexual”. I have certainly heard the term tossed around often enough to notice that, in its derogratory sense, it is most commonly applied to items or behavior considered to be effeminate. I suppose it could perhaps be argued that “gay” as teen slang for something geeky or otherwise undesireable is not meant as a direct allusion to homosexuality, but I think it’s pretty obvious that it is related to stereotypes associated with homosexual men.