No. They were runts.
Indeed, if you check your Shakespeare, you’ll find that “færie” and “hobgoblin” are used synonymously. And the modern conception of a hobgoblin is not in the least effeminate.
Well, I don’t believe the fags at British public schools were notorious for putting out. Reading Kipling’s “Stalky & Co” persuades me that fagging was quite respectable while faggotry (“The Head never expels, except for beastliness”) was anything but.
Well, “Stalky & Co.” is set at a military school, which would put it at one end of the continuum. C. S. Lewis, on the other hand, remembered one of his schools as being socially dominated by gay affairs, with who-has-a-crush-on-whom practically the only subject of conversation.
Note, however, that the fagging went on equally in schools of all sorts, showing no particular connection or correlation with homosexuality.
John W. Kennedy writes:
> C. S. Lewis, on the other hand, remembered one of his schools as being socially
> dominated by gay affairs, with who-has-a-crush-on-whom practically the only
> subject of conversation.
Lewis’s brother Warren, in his introduction to Lewis’s collected letters, says that in his memory this was an exaggeration and that there wasn’t nearly that much discussion of it as Lewis remembers.
British public schoolboy here: Fagging has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality. Also if the word came from our schools - surely it would be in use in Britain? - and in Britain a faggot is a hot juicy thing that you eat with mash. (or a lump of wood), it never means homosexual. We have loads of slang terms for homosexuals but this isn’t one of them.
Fag of course means cigarette.
Indeed, he goes on to say that it was one of the few times he got his brother to admit he was wrong. Nevertheless, I think we may still fairly assume that Lewis’s school was not like the United Services College.
To clarify: it is widely understood, but it is recognised to be an Americanism, just as if we say “gas” for the stuff you put in a car. We’re happier with terms like poof, homo, queer, bender, ginger, uphill gardener, Chinese chimney sweep, fairy, bummer, bugger… “faggot” is a long way down the list. If I were to say “I say, owlstretchingtime, do you know old Blenkinsop - one of the Staffordshire Blenkinsops” and he said “Oh yes. Actually I was his fag at school”, there would be absolutely no doubt in either of our minds what we meant. (I couldn’t give the same such answer, as I never went to public school.)
All clear now?
Do you mean old “Blimpy” Blenkinslop? Nice chap, good with colours, fond of interior design and musicals? He never married you know. Lives with his Phillipino manservant.
FWIW, my (public school-educated) boyfriend and our friends (also mostly public school) invariably use the word “fag” to mean gay. (Frex, we refer to our pubs as “fag-bars”, our friends are faggy, flamboyant clothing is fag-wear, etc.)
So many British gay men at least use fag in the American sense. (And also the British sense, to comedic effect: “can I bum a fag… ?”)
I have never heard a british male (iron or not) use the word “fag” to mean gay.
A million other words (personal favourite is “chutney ferret”) but never “fag”.I even started a thread based on it’s comic potential.
Ten to fifteen years ago, it would have been very rare to hear fag = gay male in Britain. Since then, however, it seems to have rocketed up the charts (as it were). I doubt that it’s in the number one slot, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was hovering around the number two position.
Distressing, isn’t it, to hear the language of Shakespeare debased by such transatlantic coinings? 
Indeed. Where else? :dubious:
Ah. Well.
I do realize “fag” (or “fagging” for someone) is a perfectly repectable public school term that has nothing to do with sex or homosexuality. I was just thinking given the prevelence of homosexual sex in public schools (as there is in all unisex enviorments, particularly ones involving teenagers 
) maybe the term was reinforced by the tradition. However if it’s considered an Americanism, maybe I’m off base.
So I will just quote Mark E. Smith:
“When you ask for a fag in Texas…smile…”
and withdraw.
It’s actually a myth that we’re all buggering one another stupid. Believe me; one thing that you don’t want to be thought of at a public school is in any way gay.
Several of my contemporaries are now happily out and gay, but they kept it VERY quiet when they were at school.
Teenage boys, however, not being known for logic and critical thinking, this can lead to some paradoxical situations. At the (all-boys) school where I went for 9th grade, I was the only member of my class not engaged in pulling down other guys’ pants in the locker room (I mean this quite literally). Therefore, the widespread conclusion was that I was homosexual. Which is, as you say, a very uncomfortable situation to be in.
Fortunately, I thereafter transfered to another high school which was considerably more polite on both counts.
Out of curiosity, is there a commonly used Yiddish derogatory term for gay? I can’t remember ever hearing one.
I just talked to a friend who’s 60 years old. And Jewish. He says that the word is still faygele. He’s pretty “with it” but that doesn’t mean that 20-something Jews haven’t adopted a new word. But I doubt it.
We have exactly the same problem with fag = shrew/bitch. In both cases a previously exclusively English term needs to have jumped the pond and changed meaning.
I can’t see why the public school fag explanation is so implausible. Sure it’s a British term but “Tom Brown’s Schooldays”, Kipling and other British material would have popular enough in America early last century. I imagine that might have been even more the case amongst the mpore artistic parts of the gay community. There would certainly have been ample opportunity for the word in its school-boy usage to become widely known and thence catch on in specific groups.
And as with so many words it only takes one group to adopt it for it to spread. Since the earliest refernces seem to suggest that it was gays themselves who were utilising the term I can see it quite easily becoming commonly adopted once they picked it up.
the only problem with it coming from the English Public Schools is that it has never had a homosexual connotation. It comes from the word “fag” as in chore - ie “I’d do the washing up but it’s a bit of a fag”. So a fag was someone who would do your chores.
Believe me the Public School system has plenty of slang terms for homosexual but fag isn’t one of them, and never has been.