"Brokeback" named Hollywood word of the year

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Mar 9 20:05:02 UTC 2006


There was an article in a recent N. Y. Times about "Brokeback
marriages", which doesn't involve the descriptive adjective
"brokeback" per se, but is a direct reference to the kind of marriage
depicted in the movie:  closeted gay man + unaware straight woman.
Judging from other recent hits, this has come to be used quite widely
for the same (not particularly new) phenomenon. (The article cited
the marriages of, inter al., Oscar and Constance Wilde, Cole and
Linda Porter, Rock Hudson & Phyllis Gates, and Mr. and Mrs. James
(the Gay-American Governor) McGreevey, although at least some of
these relationships involved not necessarily unaware women--the
Porters for one.)

Larry

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list