Confirmed Bachelor

[George Thompson]

Mark Mandel asks " What is the history and geography of "bachelor"
or "confirmed bachelor" as a euphemism for "male homosexual"? "

I believe that my mother used the phrase "one of nature's bachelors"  I
do not remember the person or people she applied this term to, and so
cannot comment on whether he or they in fact were, or were by others
generally taken to be, homosexual.  This is from Connecticut, 1950s,
spoken by a woman born 1900 from an old New England family.

I note that a story on the front page of the B section of today's Times
on life in a monastery quotes one of the monks as saying that if he had
not joined the monastery he would have become a crusty old bachelor (or
some similar phrase).  I haven't read the article; the passage more-or-
less quoted comes from a photo caption or some other eye-catching
position.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African
Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.