taboo avoidance

[Arnold Zwicky]

the October 2002 issue of Out magazine has a piece by Benoit
Denizet-Lewis ("Going Their Way", pp. 50-4) about how the people on
Gay Road in Miami Township, Ohio (near Dayton), petitioned,
successfully, to have their street renamed Green Apple Road.
According to the petition,

  The repercussions of living on a road called 'GAY' are not
  pleasant... The snide remarks and thoughtless comments about
  one's address being 'GAY' are intolerable.

a side story has to do with the fact that the street signs kept being
stolen.  some of the locals believe that this was the work of gay
people (presumably, those notorious gay gangs that roam the roads of
rural ohio).

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)