"sleep gay"?

[Wilson Gray]

Doesn't anybody else remember "act / talk / live, etc. black and sleep
white" from the
'Sixties? It looks like ordinary BE syntax to me: "(live straight and) sleep
gay." I've
just awakened from a nap, so I may be missing the point as a consequence of
not
being fully alert. If I am missing it, you know what to do.

-Wilson


On 3/14/06, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
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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: "sleep gay"?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mar 14, 2006, at 6:44 AM, Larry Horn wrote:
>
> > ... Being totally unfamiliar with the collocation "sleep gay" (=
> > 'engage
> > in same-sex sex'), which combines an extended euphemism with some
> > interesting syntax (note the non-parallel with, say, "sleep naked"),
> > I tried tracking it down on Nexis (major papers, all dates), and sure
> > enough this is the first actual hit for either "sleep gay", "sleeping
> > gay" or "slept gay".  There didn't appear to be any relevant google
> > hits, but I confess I didn't check out the several hundred largely
> > unparsable sequences of this type.  Does this represent a new
> > construction, or just one emerging from the collocational closet?
>
> i can't see this as an instance of any (currently productive)
> construction.  but it does have a family resemblance to "meet cute",
> which we've discussed here on occasion.
>
> arnold
>
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