Re: [ADS-L] GAY-BASHI NG etymology

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

From the context, it seems to me that he is just speaking of banging pieces 
of metal together, a practice that London apprentices of the time referred to 
as ''tin-bashing''. I'd attach the pdf, but ADS-L won't let me do that.

In a message dated 11/30/06 12:51:09 PM, george.thompson at NYU.EDU writes:


> Did Waugh make clear what "tin-bashing" consisted of?  Rough noise?
> Was he speaking of a practice of tin-workers?
> 
> GAT
> 
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: RonButters at AOL.COM
> Date: Thursday, November 30, 2006 12:18 pm
> Subject: GAY-BASHING etymology
> 
> > Others have pointed out the early Australian usage "ear-bashing"
> > (not in the
> > sense of physical abuse, however) and the early Brit. "Paki-
> > bashing." Two
> > comments on -bashing in the 1950s suggest a plausible etymology:
> >
> > 1. Robert A. Hall in AMERICAN SPEECH (31.2 [1956]: 83-88):
> >
> > p84 [the '4' indicates a footnote]:
> > EAR-BASH.4 Anon.: ' . . . occasional bemedalled drinkers . , . who
> > have
> > wanted . . . to
> > air-bash somebody or orher.' Australian Magazine, Jan. 4, 1955, p.
> 17.
> >
> > 4. In colloquial Australian English, an 'ear-bashing' is a long-
> > winded
> > monologue to which
> > a speaker subjects his hearer(s): e.g., 'He gave me an awful ear-
> > bashing
> > about his exploirs in the war.'
> >
> > 2. Sir Arthur Waugh in a letter to the editor in FOLKLORE 74.2
> > (1963):
> >
> > p415:
> > That is very relevant when we consider ‘modern’ folklore,
> > particularly the
> > growing volume of industrial folklore; for folklore it undoubtedly
> > is. As an
> > example, may I quote a practice in a modern factory not far from
> > London? [¶]
> > When an apprentice leaves to take up a regular job, he is seen off
> > to a
> > tremendous ‘tin-bashing’. Nobody can say when or how the custom
> > arose; but it is
> > rigorously observed. It may date from the nineteenth century or
> > earlier.
> > It is only a few years later that we find "Paki-bashing" in the
> > same locale,
> > and shortly after that that "gay-bashing" is recorded on the same
> > side of the
> > Atlantic. It does not seem to me to be too much of a stretch to
> > assume that
> > the early Paki-bashers were working-class folks--and that "Paki-
> > bashing" may
> > have been a sardonic extension of "tin-bashing."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>