fag out

Sat Apr 7 18:29:28 UTC 2007

At 10:33 AM -0700 4/7/07, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>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."

One factor that Arnold, in his otherwise characteristically
comprehensive and convincing analysis, doesn't mention is that the
dative here, which looks at first glance like a (non-argument)
benefactive, is an oddly flagged MALefactive or adversative.  This is
like the dative used in various languages (e.g. German) that's often
termed an ethical dative, marking someone affected positively or
negatively by the action who is not necessarily a participant in the
action.  Such malefactives/adversatives in English are usually marked
with "on" ("he up and died on me", "the engine (up and) died on me"),
but here there's already an "on" used for the goal or whatever, and
an on NP on NP sequence--"You always fag out on that on me"--sounds
odd, whence the switch to "for".

As for the verbal construction itself, my first thought (when I saw
the coverage on ESPN) was that this was simply an unaccusative "Y
fags out", i.e. an intransitive with an underlying object and no
subject that corresponds to the transitive use in "X fagged Y out",
which would hence indeed involve "no sexual connotation" in Packer's
terms, and that "That fagged him out" and "He fagged out on that" are
in some sense paraphrases, but Arnold's close scrutiny shows that
this assumption was too facile by half.  (For one thing, "That
pussied/wimped me out" are impossible alongside "I pussied/wimped
out".)

By the way, if Billy Packer honestly believes that (Charlie Rose
aside) nobody who has ever been "voted one of the most eligible
bachelors" is gay, as he seems to be claiming, he's much more naive
than I'd have guessed.

LH

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