"The Gay World" in THE NEW YORK SPY (1967)

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sun Apr 15 01:36:15 UTC 2001


At 7:54 PM -0400 4/14/01, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>THE NEW YORK SPY
>edited by Alan Rinzler
>David White Co., New York
>1967
>    "The Gay World" by Leo Skir is on pages 372-393.

>    "Straightniks" (also known as normals) in New York City are
>always trying to assimilate, to be a little colored, Jewish, gay,
>etc.  But In-Madison-Avenue term for gay kid is _fagele_ ("little
>bird" in Yiddish), sound-alike to the abusive "fag," "faggot," which
>terms come from the medieval use of sticks of wood to burn heretics,
>Jews, homosexuals.

Or not, as we've recently seen.  But I also wonder about the
non-etymological part of this claim.  I thought "feygele" (in either
the literal or metaphorical sense) was always pronounced with the
initial vowel of "bagel", and I've never seen it transcribed
"fagele".  In fact, if there was a word pronounced ['faeg at l@] as
opposed to ['fe:g at l@], I would guess that it was a blend of "fag" and
"feygele".

>    In any event:
>    Dropping hairpins--letting tender nuances into conversation to
>see if someone is simpatico.
>    "He won't come to tea again"--self-explanatory.

I wonder if this wouldn't have been a reference to the T of T-rooms,
or at least a pun on that, rather than just a reference to the
literal taking of tea.  Maybe that's an anachronistic take on it, and
I don't have my Bruce Rodgers on me, but I suspect "T-room" was
already extant in '67, at least in New York.

larry



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