"gay" redux

W Brewer brewerwa at GMAIL.COM
Sat Nov 3 14:17:04 UTC 2012


BZ: <<<the sense doesn't become prominent in print till the late '60s>>>
WB: Even granting an equivocal starting point of 1933 for _gay_
'homosexual', the only important point is the rate diffusion of this
semantic change through the Anglophone and Anglologue communities. My
epiphany came in 1969: that's one point. In hindsight, for me, Bringing up
Baby 1938 and Jack Benny 1936 are solid attestations of a limited spread of
insider knowledge; the vocal and visual cues are unambiguous. Add more
unequivocal data, especially non-written sources, to build up a solid
argument, instead of mincing words about obscure references. Amen.

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