multiple speakers and SPL

[J M Fahey]

Times change, I remember when "gay" meant happy and bright.

Well, at the peak of the British Empire, up to WW2 beginning, it meant just that.
I remember many references in Literature, such as:

Fortunately, however, we often found this man in London, in England, meditating on the gay London life and its pedantic modes, its fashions, its beautiful girls, and on his bright and extraordinary intellectual exploits in the famous University of London.

[Chuck H]

I think most people actually know that gay can mean merry. Once in awhile you'll hear a fairly contemporary reference to that effect. Off the top of my head I can site the song "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story circa 1961 and the Flintstones theme song (We'll have a gay old time) from about the same era, but continuing to the late 60's. And "I" was watching reruns (with the unedited theme song, of course) into my early teen years I think. So television had no trouble with the idea that gay means merry at least up until about 1981 for my experience. Certainly there are more recent references I'm not remembering or aware of.

Then there's "queer"... Same thing I think. And for some reason it sounds much more pejorative than gay even though gay was used by about a billion adolescent school kids in the 80's and 90's to describe almost anything as being lame or stupid.

[Justin Thomas]

Gay as lame or stupid? Guilty as charged. And it still comes out on occasion. Us oldlings are slow to change. And queer? I personally don't like the co-opting of the word. I use it to mean "odd," and I personally think that many many many of the people who want to self-describe as such are indeed, odd.

I myself would call some of my own ways "queer." I sit in the basement playing with potentially deadly voltages on archane technology from 100 years ago. I lick the spatula and eat the pan scrapings. I talk to myself a LOT & solve the mysteries of the universe. Queer? Yup. Gay? On good days when I drink too much. The other definitions? Nope!

I resent "special interest groups" limiting my use of MY language to mean exclusively whatever narrow definition they want to apply. Dammit, if I want to call someone "queer" I'm going to do it, and it probably has motjing to do with their sex life.

Justin

[nosaj]

Gay as lame or stupid? Guilty as charged. And it still comes out on occasion. Us oldlings are slow to change. And queer? I personally don't like the co-opting of the word. I use it to mean "odd," and I personally think that many many many of the people who want to self-describe as such are indeed, odd.

I myself would call some of my own ways "queer." I sit in the basement playing with potentially deadly voltages on archane technology from 100 years ago. I lick the spatula and eat the pan scrapings. I talk to myself a LOT & solve the mysteries of the universe. Queer? Yup. Gay? On good days when I drink too much. The other definitions? Nope!

I resent "special interest groups" limiting my use of MY language to mean exclusively whatever narrow definition they want to apply. Dammit, if I want to call someone "queer" I'm going to do it, and it probably has motjing to do with their sex life.

Justin

Getting a lil cantankerous are we?

nosaj

[Dave H]

There used to be a pub near here called The Gay Dog. It had been The Gay Dog for as long as I can remember but a few years ago it was changed to The Dog Inn

[Chuck H]

I sit in the basement playing with potentially deadly voltages on archane technology from 100 years ago. I lick the spatula and eat the pan scrapings. I talk to myself a LOT & solve the mysteries of the universe.

...

[Justin Thomas]

Getting a lil cantankerous are we?

nosaj

Yup. Don't plan on quitting. It's all in Orwell.

Justin

[Chuck H]

Yup. Don't plan on quitting. It's all in Orwell.

Justin

...

[g1]

Is this the part where we start talking about bullhorns?