lisps and homosexuals

RonButters at AOL.COM RonButters at AOL.COM
Tue Feb 24 16:27:17 UTC 2004


In a message dated 2/24/04 12:41:06 AM, SClements at NEO.RR.COM writes:

<< Doug Wilson just posted to the "Gay self-appellation" thread and cited HDAS

"gay boy" from 1904.


So, I went to see the exact language.  And then I read the cite above it for

"gay-and-frisky" which was rhyming slang for _whiskey_.


But the interesting part was the actual quote:


1904 Dunbar _Happy Hollow_ 248:  Whath the mattah?  Up againtht it? You look

a little ol' to be doin' the gay an' frithky.


Is there an earlier cite for imitating the stereotypical? gay lisp?  Or, am

I just misreading this cite?


SC >>

GAY didn't come to mean 'homosexual' until the 1930s (late 1920s at the very
earliest), and then it was an insider term known only to other homosexuals. It
didn't move out into the general population until the 1940s and 1950s, and
even then it wasn't very powerful. The general population didn't use the term as
the primary meaning until the late 1960s.

The 1904 cite surely has nothing to do with homosexuality.



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