fag out

[Wilson Gray]

I agree with Alison WRT "fagged out." One time at work, a gay buddy of
mine was tellling me about a long - it had started on Thursday -
weekend of partying that he had spent in The City. Indeed, the
partying had been so intense that he'd had to drive from NYC directly
back to work in Bo, stopping at home only long enough to change
clothes. To this I replied, without giving it a second thought, "Jeez,
Philly, you must be all fagged out!" Unfortunately, I then did give it
a second thought and heard myself clumsily adding, "Uh, I mean ..."
The unfortunate thing is that Philly and I had been asshole buddies (I
don't know the origin of this term, but it was a wholly-neutral phrase
in everyday use in the BE of my youth) for so long that he wouldn't
have noticed another possible connotation of "fagged out," if I hadn't
called his attention to it.

-Wilson

On 4/7/07, sagehen <sagehen at westelcom.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: fag out
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jonathan writes:
>
> >Intrans. "fag out" (to become wearied to exhaustion) is not commonly used
> >by U.S. speakers in my experience, but undergraduates frequently report it
> >as "slang," presumably because they've read it somewhere in an English
> >class.  Trans. "fag (out)" (to weary to exhuastion) and adj. "fagged"
> >(exhausted) may be more common, but none are typical.
> ~~~~~~~~
> "Fagged out" has been unambiguously "dead tired" nearly all my life, though
> I don't hear it much any more.  It co-existed with "faggot" without causing
> confusion  (or sniggering,  that I knew of) or any sense of double entendre
> when I was growing up.  I would still use it without thinking twice.
> AM
>
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> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                                      -Sam'l Clemens

Dope wil get you through times of no money better than money will get
you through times of no dope.
-----
                                         -Free-Wheeling Franklin

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