Fwd: origins of "faggot"

[Jerome Foster]

"while you've a lucifer to light your fag"



----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2001 6:40 AM
Subject: Re: Fwd: origins of "faggot"


> The story about burning homosexuals almost surely is bushwa (IMHO).
>
> Farmer and Henley (1893) tell what is apparently the same story -- but
with
> regard to heresy/heretics ("fit to be burned") -- in their "faggot" entry,
> which (!) does not include a "homosexual" sense (which apparently didn't
> exist yet?) but which refers instead to a woman (like "slut" maybe).
>
> Two possibilities:
>
> (1) (?"Faggot" = "bundle of sticks" >) "faggot" =
> "woman"/"slut"/"prostitute" > "faggot" = "effeminate man" > "faggot" =
> "homosexual man" (> "fag" = "homosexual man").
>
> (2) "Fag" = "work hard"/"tire" > "fag" = "schoolboy who does menial work
> for an older student" > "fag" = "catamite" > "fag" = "homosexual man" >
> "faggot" = "homosexual man".
>
> I suppose (1) is the majority opinion. I like (2) also, IF one can explain
> how "fag" crossed the Atlantic.
>
> Then there's (Yiddish) "faygele" ... does it take the sense "homosexual
> man" purely on the basis of its phonetic resemblance to "fag"/"faggot"? Or
> is "birdie" or whatever used for "homosexual man" in German or elsewhere?
>
> This topic no doubt has been thoroughly researched?
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>