"The Gay World"

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:47 PM -0400 4/16/01, Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com wrote:
>Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> writes:
>
>>>>>>
>>     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.
><<<<<
>
>I suspect I know what "T-room" means, but I'd rather not leave it at
>that. Definition, please?
>
T (for toilet) room, also tearoom, or teahouse:  'public toilet'

Whence e.g. "tearoom trade" (Bruce Rodgers, Gay Talk (1972)) = 'men
who dig [note the pub. date] getting blown in public lavatories',
"tearoom queen", etc.

larry
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/attachments/20010416/56976608/attachment.htm>