"gay" again

[Wilson Gray]

When I was in basic training, "be queer for" was used as an insult directed
at anyone who slipped up and locked eyes with a member of the cadre:
"What're you looking at me for, soldier? You queer for me?" This was a
question with no correct answer. Obviously, yes would be the wrong answer,
but if you said no, it was an insult to the cadre-member, implying that you
found him physically beneath your standard of masculine beauty. Your only
recourse was to say nothing and drop down and give him twenty push-ups
without waiting to be told.

You were supposed to use the thousand-yard stare and look *through* the
members of the training cadre, not *at* them, whenever their gaze happened
to fall upon you.

-Wilson

On 7/31/06, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "gay" again
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jul 29, 2006, at 2:59 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>
> > Not sure if this has been noted here before, but one recent semantic
> > development on the "gay" front is the construction "be gay for" =
> > 'have an unseemly or exuberant affection for (someone or
> > something)'...
>
> i don't recall having seen this one -- i might just not have noticed
> it -- but i have noticed "be queer for" in this sense.  an
> interesting sense development: the component of attraction remains,
> while the sexual component vanishes.
>
> arnold
>
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Frederick Douglass

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