'Gay' and 'ret*d'

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To Panda: "ret*d" has been a slur for some sixty years now. Surely you must have both given and or recieved the epithet on the school playground sometime in your growing up! Hardly "new".
But like you Ive been confused about this new fangled use of "gay".

Finnally I get it. "Gay" now means "lame" or "uncool" or "crappy".
Okay- I finnally get an explanation.

Originally it meant "happy"or "carefree". Then it meant "homosexual"( back in my day). And now it means "uncool".

How and why it got the last meaning is baffling to me.

Okay- if you're a homophobe- then saying something is "gay" would be a putdown of that thing ( not sayin its right- but it makes sense). But it doesnt seem to be used in a way
thats gender related. In my day if you prefered watching ballet to watching football you might run the risk of being called "a fa***t", but when young folks today declare that listening to Coldplay "is so gay" they dont seem to be impugning the Coldplay listener's virility- just his taste. But if so -then why use the word "gay"- why not "lame" ?

Im both an oldster and an aspie.So I guess im just too confused by this phenomenon to even have an opinion about it.

If I were to say "I find this thread to be very gay", it could mean one of three things:

1. I like it very much.

2. I dislike it very much.

3. It is arousing me sexually.

I'll just call it "somewhat gay" and leave it at that.

I wonder how the term "gay" came to be associated with homosexuality in the first place?

"Gay" is the politically correct alternative to "queer" or "fa***t" no matter how else it's used.
"ret*d" is actually a scientific term.
"ret*d" can be taken disparagingly but why be so sensitive?
I've been called a ret*d, I've called myself a ret*d, and I've called lots of others ret*d (or 'tard for short) and we survived despite it.

Good question.

For about three centuries the word did have an alternative meaning to the original meaning of "happy" and "carefree". When the adjective was applied to a young man it often meant he was a fop, or a dandy, or a libertine,or a heterosexual playboy who pursued "the sportin' life". That sort of thing. It was probably from that meaning that it morphed into meaning " a homosexual"- sometime in postwar america. And now thats the main thing the word is used to mean.

"Don we now our [i]gay apparel[/i].."

Is it time to update that song?

It doesn't offend me, but I do think it's stupid to say words that way.

And BTW, I still enjoy Limp Bizkit

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The transition could have happened in Europe as well, and I think it happened when vividly homosexual males started opening creating a different lifestyle for themselves publicly that openly threw the question of gender roles into question. Where seeing a happy, smiling young man struting down the street to the exclamation of "My, what a Gay Young Man!" changed to seeing a similar young man wearing a too small -pink t-shirt and ripped Cutoff jean shorts to the same exclamation...... (Or similar situations). Homosexual culture from the time (Or what I know of it), tended to be very vibrant, in your face, and celebratory of their difference from the norm, as such I think it came to be viewed by outsiders as overly happy, IE "Gay" to an older Generation used to the word, even if they may not have quite realized the new association they were creating. But most of this is just guess work from what I know of the transition.

I have a sneaky suspicion the transition would have started in Europe, and probably well before WW2 actually, it would have taken a few decades I think to go from "occasional reference to gay men, unintentionally aimed at them" to "More directed, because the homosexual "Coming out in society" gained strength" to what we had back in the 60's or so of "*Slang* Gay = Homosexual, to the exclusion of all other previous meanings". And europe, particularly in Britain and France post WW1 would have been a more likely candidate for both the accpetance of the initial emergence of "Homosexual Culture, as defined by being seperate from 'Normal quasi-conservative culture'", and the proliferation of likely communities and Venues where the older generations would be likely to come into contact with this emerging sub-culture. But again, this is all speculation on my part, I have never done any research on this *Specific* aspect of the early-mid 20th century.

Cheers,
Aldran

my best friend is homosexual, (though i more often think of him simply as my friend, the sexual preference is very much a side-note of little relevance usually). he uses the word gay from time to time, and even more derogatory terms for homosexuals, both in slang context, and occasionally in the context of actually insulting other homosexuals. he is not a fan of flamers and flaunters. he's just a normal dude, who happens to not be attracted to chicks, it does not define him.

so not much an issue with gay personally.

ret*d i do occasionally use, and feel somewhat bad about that if I stop to think about it. is there a better word to describe actions and individuals who perpetrate certain actions as profoundly-stupid, but in less syllables? again i never use this word in the context of insulting people with mental differences, but i do feel differently about it because in the case of 'gay' for example, you could speak with a gay person, and reason with them, and if they are reasonable they shouldn't be too appalled by a slang appropriation of a word, which was re-appropriated in the first place to be associated with homosexuality.
However if you consider, you could not by definition as easily reason with a person of low IQ, the different context of the word that describes them as a person of inferior or lacking intellect.

To the Thesaurus Batman!
I now feel a conviction I should for hell sake, be able to find another word to describe people and behaviors who are profoundly stupid. By this i mean people who on some level CHOOSE to operate in a lower range of intelligence just because it requires less effort, or some other stupid reason

among these synonym of stupid, my candidates are bolded below
brainless, dazed, deficient, dense, dim, doltish, dopey, dull, dumb, dummy*, foolish, futile, gullible, half-baked, half-witted, idiotic, ill-advised, imbecilic, inane, indiscreet, insensate, irrelevant, laughable, loser*, ludicrous, meaningless, mindless, moronic, naive, nonsensical, obtuse, out to lunch, pointless, puerile, rash, senseless, shortsighted, simple, simpleminded, slow, sluggish, stolid, stupefied, thick, thick-headed, trivial, unintelligent, unthinking, witless
cretinous, feeble minded

some of these are definitely poignant, however they seem to not quite pack the punch of the word we are trying to replace, i will keep looking and keep you posted

I can admit i have a bad habit of saying those words in bad context -__- but i'm making a conscious effort not to

I use "gay" only to describe things that seem to have a connection to homosexuality.
Example: A man wearing a feather boa
I do not use it to describe stupid, offensive, or otherwise undesirable actions or things.

I do occasionally use "ret*d" to describe the stupid actions of myself or others. I'm trying to stop, though, as I would feel really badly someone who fit the medical definition of that word overheard me.

There should be one final option in your survey:the option of "Im too old to know WTF this survey is about!"

First "gay" meant "happy", then it meant "homosexual", and then apparently a decade ago it meant "lame".

Im still struggling to adjust from the first to the second meanings, and I never even heard of the third meaning until 2012 when I started seeing young folks on the web complaining about how THAT usage is passe'.

I guess its official!

Im old!



"ret*d" is different.
It was very much part of my baby boomer growing up.
And like many aspies I was called that on the playground often.

But for some reason Im not bothered by people using the word.
maybe I should be.

I sometimes use the word in real life, but when I do I put on a dopey grade school kid voice when I say it ( ' are you LIKE totally ret*d?')so I myself sound goofy.

But in print you cant convey tone of voice.


I complained on a website once that people who dont understand the purpose of bar codes on merchandise are "ret*d" and a moderator on that particular website changed the words to "delayed". Was surprise at how seriously the word was taken.

So I guess it all depends.

But one thing both terms have in common: they both were originially euphemisms.

In the thirties scientists and doctors decided that words like "imbecile" and "moron" were too derogatory to be used as clinical terms. So they borrowed the French word for "delayed" to use instead.

By the Fifties when we boomers were in gradeschool the new term "ret*d" had spread way beyond the learned men and women in white coats to the school playground to become the common epithet it is now.

So now folks are looking for a euphemism for... a euphemism!

Similarly: in the late sixties homosexuals themselves adopted the word "gay" as alternative to "fag" or "queer" for themselves.

We still have "Gay Pride" events.

So its baffling to hear these compliants about the word "gay" as being an epithet- because "Gay" is NOT the epithet. Its supposed to be the alternative to all of the other words that ARE epithets!

Or thats how dinosaurs like me think of it.

Its best to combine the two terms into "Gaytard"

One of my favorites is "f#cktard".

That one is good too

It's a complex issue. The best I can say is, context and intent count for everything. I've heard some of my friends, including one of my closest, use "ret*d" to describe unfortunate situations (as in, "Someone dented my fender. This is ret*d.") and lapses of judgment (as in, "I locked my keys in my car. Wow, I'm ret*d."). It used to annoy me, but I realized that was just sort of an irrational kneejerk reaction. Upon critically assessing the context, I realized I really didn't have any reason to be offended. It isn't like my friends would ever use that word derogitorily to refer to me or other people with ASDs or mental disabilities.

This is why I am dubious of political correctness. On the surface, the sentiment may appear nice-- trying to be more sensitive to the feelings and experiences of others. But it's just a game of semantics-- it's not actually doing anything about the way people of "other" status are treated, or the problems inherent in seeing people in terms of "other" status in the first place. More often than not, what it actually does has the opposite effect, glossing over the real problems and rationalizing apathy and a false sense of piousness. The word is not the issue. Words are mutable and malleable and they can mean whatever we want them to mean. The issue is what is meant by the word, and the intent to demonize or single out or condescend to "the other". PC-ness does nothing to change that attitude.

When the words "gay" and "queer" and "fa***t" and "ret*d" are used in the sense that most teenagers (and twentysomethings, apparently) these days use them, they generally don't speak to malice toward actual homosexuals or the mentally disabled. They're more like homonyms in that sense-- the same word, just a different meaning. I don't even think the people who use these words in that sense necessarily think about the historical meanings as insults for specific groups of people, or subscribe to the belief that these groups are inferior. I recognize that fighting their usage in that sense is a losing battle. However, in the sense that they may still occasionally be used to stigmatize homosexuality or mental disability-- that is something which sends up a personal red flag for me.

That is basically what I think about the issue. Like how moron used to be a medical term meaning mild retardation, then it became an insult, and now 102 years later it has lost it's original meaning. I'd go as far as not using those kinds of words among people who feel offended, but as long as those words are not used to insult homosexual or mentally ret*d people, I dont think it's such a big deal.