Fwd: origins of "faggot"

[Laurence Horn]

Cross-post from Outil on the history of "faggot".  Can anyone confirm
or (more likely) disconfirm?
I'll cross-post relevant results back to Outil.  RHHDAS doesn't give
an origin, but it does indicate (via OED cites) that an apparently
earlier meaning of 'woman' was around since the early 19th c. and, if
a wayward citing from 1591 is correctly interpreted, from much
earlier than the 19th c.  There's a nice cite from Joyce's Ulysses
("That old faggot Mrs. Riordan") and a listing from an 1873 slang
dictionary ('a term of reproof for women and children:  "you little
faggot you"') that illustrates a broader use as a term of abuse.  No
connection is made in this listing with the non-slang 'bag of sticks'
item.

There's a general trend for semantic change along the lines of
'woman, girl' > 'woman/girl/child' > 'effeminate male' > 'homosexual
man', as illustrated by 'fairy', inter alia.  It's plausible (at
least to me) based on the OED/RHHDAS data that 'faggot' developed in
similar ways.  Since I don't know of any practice of bundling and/or
burning women and children, I tend to discount the history posited
below.

larry
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--- begin forwarded text
[outil post]

I know that we've gone over this many times, but could Ron or someone else
remind me of the origins of "faggot"?  Somehow, I find myself doubting the
one given below.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 13:28:27 -0400 (EDT)

[snippage deleted]

Which brings me to my other concern, the thing that really bothers me the
most.  I find the use of the word "fags" to be insulting and
irresponsible. Now I know that some people believe that just as
african-american people can use the "n"-word, so can gays use the
"f"-word.  However, I find this to be absurd when you learn of the origin
of the word fagot to describe homosexuals.  The original meaning of the
word fagot is "a bundle of sticks."  Of course we can never be sure as to
the true evolution of how this word came to mean homosexual male, but one
story I have heard that is widely accepted is as follows: "As far as how
it (fagot) came to mean homosexual, there are many theories about
that...the leading one being that in the old days, bigots would bundle a
homosexual man inside a fagot of wood, and then either burn him inside it,
or beat the bejesus out of him...either way, after that, they could say
"we burned/broke a fagot" and it would work as a code of sorts." (source:
http://plateaupress.com.au/wfw/faggot.htm)  I had heard a few years ago
that gays were once bundled together and then burned as if they were a
bundle of sticks and that is how fagot came to mean homosexual, which is
similar to the above definition.  This shows me that the use of the word
fagot has a long history of hatred behind it and I personally would not
ever use a term such as this one to describe myself...

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