fag out

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:03 AM -0400 4/8/07, James Harbeck wrote:
>>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.
>
>I find this a curious statement, as it seems to assume that the
>meaning "homosexual" for "fag" is prior, when in fact the "work to
>exhaustion" meaning is prior. The meaning "homosexual" is a
>shortening of "faggot," which is a term that was applied to
>homosexuals after it was applied as a term of abuse to burdensome old
>women, and apparently as an extension of that; that term in turn
>comes from the meaning "bundle" or "burden," which is extended from
>the original "bundle of sticks."

[extended derivation of "fag(got)" elided here, since it's not being
contested by anyone in the thread]

>
>I've certainly heard "fag" used meaning "exhaustion"; "brain fag" was
>once a medical diagnosis (OED has it as "exhaustion of the brain by
>prolonged mental strain"). It's a British usage, though, so no
>surprise it seems odd to North Americans.
>
This is true, but the point, as I understood it, is that the
particular use of "fag out" at issue in the Billy Packer line (""You
always fag out on that one for me.") does not involve 'work to
exhaustion' and instead is a denominal verb meaning approximately
'shirk/let down/disappoint by exhibiting the qualities of an X' found
also in "wimp out (on)" and "pussy out (on)", as well as--Jim Landau
reminds us--"fink out (on)".  This cannot be traced back to the "fag
(out)" meaning 'work to exhaustion' by any obvious derivation or
metaphorical extension, and given the independent existence of "fag"
n. it seems more that reasonable to assume that at least a blend of
the two streams was at work here, on a conscious or unconscious level.

LH

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