"cover"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sun Dec 23 16:37:50 UTC 2007


At 10:57 AM -0500 12/23/07, Mark Sacks wrote:
>Mark Mandel, in asking
>
>>  How did "cover" come to mean 'record a song that
>>  someone
>>  else has previously recorded'?
>
>clarified this meaning for me. If he is right, the term "cover" actually
>means rerecording, say, Cole Porter songs or Schubert lieder.
>
>Another use of "cover" I remember from college: In more homophobic times a
>gay male and female would often appear in public together as if they were
>a couple, the purpose (I think) being to protect the female from unwanted
>male attentions. The term for the male in this dyad was "cover faggot." I
>suppose the term "cover dyke" would have existed as well, but I don't
>think I ever heard it.
>
Sort of the opposite of "beard"?

LH

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