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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>John’s argument appears to imply
that either (a) the use of “That’s so gay” derives from the
older senses of the adjective (meaning “carefree; colorful; jaunty;
lighthearted”), or (b) at any rate is not directly derived from the sense
meaning “(primarily male) homosexual”. Both these arguments are
obviously wrong. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>We can see that from the fact that the phrase
in question is practically always one of denigration, insult or abuse, unlike
the older sense; and also that it is directly connected by naïve users with
sexuality. In the </span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>UK</span></font><font
size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy'>, where it is commonly used by primary school children, I’ve
asked several of them aged 8-9 what it means, and gotten replies using words
like “man-love-man”; when I inquired whether that was how they
actually used it, it turned out of course that they meant “something bad
or not very good”, with no literal reference to sexuality. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>To me this clearly suggests that they are
aware of the derivation, and therefore are learning to connect “homosexual”
with “bad”. (Perhaps they are not even aware of the older sense).
As the phrase seems to be pretty new usage (though we may find out when
documented that this is the fallacy of neologism – I/we just haven’t
noticed it till lately), it would indeed be most unlikely that the new would
fail to conjure or connect with its immediate predecessor, though that could
eventually happen (whether it could happen only under conditions of continued stigmatisation
of homosexual identity is an interesting question).</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Does this mean that the usage is, as John
claims, not “</span></font>inherently homophobic and oppressive<font
size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy'>”? On the contrary, it means that the adjective identifying a
group of people (routinely oppressed in this homophobic nation, as in others)
is knowingly used as a byword for denigration, even by a segment of the
population who knows very little about them and has very newly absorbed
prevalent prejudices. That ain’t borscht-belt humor.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>In this case, as in nearly every case of
racism and prejudice in general, actual usage is not strictly about what the
speaker narrowly intended the hearer to think at that moment – much less
about whether some of the speaker’s best friends are X, or whether the
speaker is basically a nice person – but about social context more
broadly conceived. Language that helps to enact, reinforce and recreate
oppression – and pass it on to a new generation of (relative) innocents –
is itself a kind of oppression. Failing to make the connection – eg,
using the phrase, but in other ways not actively behaving in a homophobic
fashion – is just a type of not-getting-it.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Imagine yourself using the N-word in a similar
derived and general way, and constructing an argument that there was nothing
racist about it. (Better yet, construct the argument for us so we can judge it.)
Or, since I think you are in </span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Japan</span></font><font
size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy'>, make up a new similar phrase like “That’s yellow”,
used as a term of general abuse, and try it out on your English-speaking Japanese
friends. Would being unaware that a significant number of people find it
insulting, actually make it neutral? Of course not. Would the fact that you are
a nice guy constitute a linguistic argument about social context? Nope. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:36.0pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>As Marcy
Morgan has argued about African American speech norms, in a discussion of ‘baited
indirectness’, “Audiences are co-authors who, along with speakers
contribute to and determine the intent of what is said… Speaker intent is
constituted through collaboration and is not considered complete without it”
– a speech norm often misunderstood by outsiders to the African American
speech community. Thus, you or your daughter alone, as speakers, can’t be
considered adequate judges of the meaning of the phrase in its social context.
(I’m not saying I can – you have to examine its use empirically,
and take into account reactions of people different from yourself, in this case
including those who take it as linked to homophobia and find it offensive, as
well as – perhaps more damningly – those who take it as linked and
don’t.)</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> -peter p-</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>Prof. Peter L. Patrick</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>Dept. of Language and Linguistics</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>University of Essex</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>Wivenhoe Park</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>Colchester CO4 3SQ, U.K.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>patrickp@essex.ac.uk</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>(+44) 1206 872088</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp</span></font></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>-----Original Message-----<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>From:</span></b>
owner-linganth@ats.rochester.edu [mailto:owner-linganth@ats.rochester.edu] <b><span
style='font-weight:bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>John McCreery<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> </span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>12 March 2007</span></font><font
size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'> </span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>00:02</span></font><font
size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> linganth@cc.rochester.edu<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Fwd: [Linganth]
"That's so gay" controversy</span></font></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span class=gmailquote><font
size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
color:navy'> </span></font></span></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>I am curious about the
turn the discussion is taking, assuming that "That's so gay" is
inherently homophobic and oppressive. The only person I've actually heard
use the expression is my 30-year old Navy pilot, now a new mom, daughter,
who is one of the most absolutely non-homophobic people I know. In her usage,
it becomes a kind of rolling-the-eyes equivalent of "That's a crazy
thing to say." It seems to be more or less equivalent to "Are you
high?" spoken in a sarcastic tone, which used to fill the same slot in her
conversational patterns. <br>
<br>
All this is not to say that the expression was not coined in homophobic
circumstances (I simply don't know if that is the case). It does, however,
appear to be one of those cases in which slang may have dubious origins, but
actual usage doesn't imply the implications those origins suggest. <br>
<br>
I am once again reminded of my friend Donald DeGlopper's remark re studies of
Chinese religion, where Don remarked that anthropologists tend to lump together
the local equivalents of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the Easter Rabbit
and treat them all with the same deadpan seriousness. Ah yes, I thought to
myself hearing Don say this, analysis as Borscht-belt humor. <br>
<br>
John</span></font></p>
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face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><br>
-- <br>
John McCreery<br>
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN<br>
Tel. +81-45-314-9324<br>
<a href="http://www.wordworks.jp/">http://www.wordworks.jp/</a> </span></font></p>
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style='font-size:10.0pt'>--<br>
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