This thread, “Are women gimpier than men?”, reminds me of something that always makes me pause and think: many, many people use the word “gimp” in a different manner than I am accustomed to.
To me, “gimp” means the guy from Pulp Fiction; a sex slave, with full-body leather, usually male. Which of course took me aback one day when my coworker said she was “gimping around”.
To many other people, gimp means some sort of physical disablement.
How did these two meanings come together? Who knows it which way? Poll to follow.
Both. Although “gimpier” I would take to refer to only the “sickly” definition, just as “gimp suit” would refer to fetish gear and not a hospital gown.
I’m not familiar with the ‘sex slave’ definition. Gimp, to me, means (in descending order of personal usage):
The photo editing program (GIMP).
Someone with a physical disability, usually a lame leg and a limp.
Some sort of cord or rope, possibly one sailors use?
That thread was the first time I’d seen the word with that ending (“ier”). It did throw me for a minute. Looking up definitions… my third definition is off by a bit and I’d not heard of a gimp suit before - I’m guessing that’s where you’re coming from.
I thought the whole thing about a gimp being a sex slave began and ended with Pulp Fiction.
I remember several years ago, a local radio DJ, who was obviously a Pulp Fiction fan, used the term several times on the air. He was clearly unaware it had a derogatory meaning outside of the movie. But apparently somebody at the station clued him in during a commercial break because when he came back on the air, he was offering sincere apologies and saying it had not been his intent to offend anyone.
Count me with the people thinking Pulp Fiction was trying to kick-start a term that never really caught on.
The two meanings I was expecting to be in the poll were
(most common I would imagine) a crippled or otherwise physically disabled person.
(rather specialized, and I was feeling proud of myself for knowing it) gimp thread for embroidery - it’s an alternate (I think older) term for cordonnet, which is the thick bit of thread around the edges of lace or trim to make the edge stand out and keep the fine work of the lace from tearing or unraveling.
I never would have thought about Pulp Fiction if you hadn’t mentioned it.
Around here, gimp as in disability is rarely used. And in my circle of friends, it only ever means the other. (I mean, not that it comes up often.) My coworkers are almost all older; I’d do a poll, but I don’t need all of the shock that will come from them.
For me, a gimp has always been someone with a defective leg, a noun to describe someone with a limp.
But then, the sexual subculture has always co-opted certain terms for their own usage, which usually fall out of use, again, after a few years.
Let’s see, the term Chickenhawk now is applied to those who are all in favor of war, and of sending others to fight in their place (Hawks, in their willingness to support war but Chicken, in their own unwillingness to go). But chickenhawks used to refer to older gays that would prey on innocent young men with little experience. (Draw whatever correlation that tickles you from that.)
Another one is the commonly used term, Troll (along with “trolling”), that describes lurkers on the internet who pretend to be someone else for the purpose of posting to make their purported side look bad. Took me awhile to figure that I hadn’t stumbled into some dungeon where ugly old men were cruising for favors from better looking young men inclined to service them.
Both, but I’d really only think you were talking about the Pulp Fiction variety if you said, ‘the gimp’. ‘Gimpy’, ‘gimpier’, even ‘a gimp’ all make me think of the physical-disability difference.
It’s been a long time but it seems like I heard someone use the term as a limp. As in “he walked with a gimp”. Otherwise, don’t know what the heck it means.
My sister-in-law is in a wheelchair and we lovingly address her as Gimpy, or sometimes “the gimp.” Yeah we’re all sentimental like that.
I do know the definition used in Pulp Fiction because I saw the movie, but I don’t know if I’ve heard or used the word that way in any context outside conversation about the movie itself.
There’s a similar material used in plaiting or braiding of such things as bracelets and lanyards and other crafts that youngsters of my generation (at least) produced at summer camp and for Boy Scouts projects. It had a plastic covering and came in many colors and was easy to work.
