fag out

Sat Apr 7 17:33:29 UTC 2007

as the chief editor on the Fag Desk at Language Log Plaza, i've been
passed some stuff about CBS basketball analyst Billy Packer on "The
Charlie Rose Show".  a recent report on

   http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/news/celebrity/
mmx-0704050184apr05,0,608055.story

says:

As the interview concluded, Rose said to Packer: "Do you need a
runner this Final Four? Because I could jump on a plane and I could
be there."

Packer: "You always fag out on that one for me."

Rose laughed, seemingly unaffected by Packer's use of a term that
often is used as a slur for gays.

Packer continued: "You always say, `Yeah, I'm gonna be the runner'
and then you never show up. But I'm sure they could find a place for
you. You have all the connections in the world."

Packer said Wednesday that that the term "has nothing to do with
sexual connotation. I think Charlie was once voted one of the most
eligible bachelors. It has to do with fatigue."

Some background: Packer and Rose have been friendly for years, with
Rose having joked that he would like to serve as a runner--basically
a gofer--during the Final Four so he can watch the games from press row.

... "It has no relationship to gay people," Packer said Wednesday.
"He's never up to doing the work."

The first definition of "fag" in the Random House Unabridged
Dictionary is "to tire or weary by labor; exhaust (often followed by
out): The long climb fagged us out."

CBS spokeswoman LeslieAnne Wade defended the 67-year-old Packer,
saying his use of the term was "generational."

But she wished Packer had not used the term "because of the climate
we live in," she said.
-----

i'm trying to sort out the usage here.

first, the Random House cite is for *transitive* "fag (out)", while
packer's use was *intransitive* (with two PP complements, "on that
one", i.e. on serving as runner, and the experiencer "for me").
dictionaries generally seem to list an intransitive "fag" 'toil', for
example:

   OED: to do something that wearies one; to work hard; to labour,
strain, toil

   AHD4: to work to exhaustion; toil

   NOAD2: to work hard, esp. at a tedious job or task

   M-W Online: to work hard: TOIL

even with the component of exhaustion, this intransitive "fag"
doesn't fit in packer's sentence; he certainly wasn't saying that
rose always works hard, to the point of exhaustion, for him.

NOAD2 lists an intransitive sense that's a bit closer: to grow
weary.  (very close to "flag".)  but that's inchoative, and also
doesn't quite fit in packer's sentence, especially with "out" and
those two complements.

packer has been reported as sticking to the dictionary, citing the
transitive verb "fag":

   Packer said by "fag out," he meant the Dictionary.com definition,
"to tire or weary by labor; exhaust."
   http://www.outsports.com/cbb/20062007/packer0403.htm

Outsports tells us that on-line (non-scholarly) dictionaries
generally have entries for "fag out", with pretty much the same
definitions: e.g., the Urban Dictionary's "To bail on something,
'pussy out'."  this seems to me to be right on the nose.  the
expression is slang, and belongs to a small family of idioms of the
form "X out (on someone)", where X is a verb zero-derived from a noun
denoting a weak or ineffectual person: wimp, wuss, pussy.  (lots and
lots of hits for "wimp out" and "wuss out".)  call this the WimpOut
pattern.  the meaning of the pattern is, as UsingEnglish.com says for
"wimp out" itself, 'not be brave enough to do something' -- or, more
precisely, to fail to do something because of a lack of balls.

the upshot of this is that packer was using "fag" in "fag out" to
mean 'weak, ineffectual person (esp. a man)'.  packer himself seems
to agree:

   "The term has nothing to do with sexuality," Packer said.... It's
about a guy too lazy to get the work. ... I can assure you I will use
that phrase again and I won't think twice about it. My meaning is
genuine." [from Outsports]

so this is bleached "fag" (parallel to bleached "gay"), a slur that
has lost its specificity -- it's not about sexuality -- but has
preserved the component of derogation.  ("brokeback" went down this
road in a matter of weeks or months.)  packer was derogating rose,
but in the friendly, even affectionate, fashion of buddy-buddy
insults, which often turn on imputations of insufficient masculinity.

but a new bleached slur -- note that it's still a slur -- co-exists
with the older specific slur, a situation that can be very
uncomfortable for the people who are the objects of the specific
slur.  hence, the complaints about packer on various gay sites.

this much i think i understand pretty well.  the reason i'm posting
on ADS-L is that dialect variation has been introduced into this
discussion, via the appeal to dictionary entries for "fag",
intransitive 'toil' or 'grow weary' and transitive 'exhaust', in
constructions other than WimpOut.  various sites have labeled these
usages as british, and that generally accords with my impressions,
but the details are complex.

first, back to WimpOut.  is this pattern at all current in colloquial
british english (or antipodal english, for that matter)?  if it
occurs at all in these varieties, i assume that "fag out" would not
be one of its instances, since the slur "fag" is specifically u.s.
slang.

now to some serious confusions.  from Outsports:

   WordWebOnline.com lists the origin as British and defines the term
as: "Exhaust or get tired through overuse or great strain or stress."
Openly gay former NBA player John Amaechi, who is British, told
Outsports: "I can honestly say I have never heard that phrase used
that way. Not in my entire life."

part of the confusion here comes from ordinary people's inclinations
to assume that one sound/spelling = one word.  so Outsports moves
immediately from Urban Dictionary's definition of "fag out" (in
WimpOut) to the exhaust/toil item in "The long climb fagged us out"
and the like.  this particular (transitive) example strikes me as
thoroughly british; i can't imagine it in billy packer's mouth.
similarly for intransitive examples like "he didn't have to fag away
in a lab to get the right answer" (from NOAD2) or "fagged up a steep
hill" (from OED).

then Outsports quotes a british speaker, amaechi, as saying he'd
never heard "that phrase" used "that way".  in the context as
printed, "that phrase" seems to refer to the most recently mentioned
expression, namely "fag" in its exhaust/toil senses.  but that's
preposterous; surely amaechi has heard things like "I'm all fagged
out from the long practice".  the quote from amaechi surely has to be
about *packer's* use of "fag out" (an instance of WimpOut), and there
i suspect he's entirely correct; the quote from packer seems
thoroughly non-british.  but i'd like some reassurance from ADS-Lers
who know more about the fine details of british slang than i do.

back to the u.s.: to what extent have the british exhaust/toil senses
of "fag" made their way into american english?  here, the
dictionaries are not as useful as we might like.

the OED seems, not entirely surprisingly, to have been insensitive to
the specifically british character of (at least) some of these
usages.  the relevant subentries -- i exclude  british public-school
usages -- for intransitive and transitive "fag" lack any marker of
style or region.

NOAD2 lists only intransitive "fag", but the relevant senses are
labeled as both british and informal.

AHD4 and M-W Online, on the other hand, have no labels at all for the
relevant senses, thus suggesting that "fag" in these senses is
generally available in american english.  i'm dubious about that, and
find AHD4's example "Four hours on the tennis court fagged me out"
very british-sounding.  but maybe i just haven't noticed the spread
of some of these usages in the u.s.  what say the american
lexicographers?

finally, there's NOAD2's 'grow weary' sense, which is unfortunately
not illustrated by an example.   can *anyone* say things like "I
fagged after playing tennis for two hours" or "I fagged of playing
tennis after two hours"?  or is 'grow weary' just not a good gloss
for the intended sense?

i remind you that i am not myself a lexicographer, just a consumer of
the products of lexicography.

arnold

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