Q: Possible 1727 "queen" = male homosexual?

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:53 AM -0400 7/11/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Conceptually related, obviously, even an adumbration, but not an ex. of the
>current use.  A nickname doesn't necessarily double as a common noun .
>Cf.: During the 1920s, American college men often referred casually to
>attractive women as "queens."  But Queen Latifah's (stage) name (decades
>later rather than centuries earlier, as is Joel's ex.) doesn't exemplify the
>slang term.
>
>The homosexual sense of "queen" is also first clearly documented in the
>1920s.
>
>JL

Jon et al,

What's the latest view on "quean", which is attested several
centuries earlier as a spinoff of (or at least cognate with) "queen"?
The OED provides the gloss

'Originally: a woman, a female. Later: a bold or impudent woman; a
hussy; spec. a prostitute. Also in extended use.  In early Middle
English as a general term of abuse, passing (esp. in 16-17th
centuries) into a more specific term of disparagement'

and an etymology that links it to various words in IE languages for
'woman, wife', while acknowledging the overlap with "queen" in both
sense and pronunciation:

============
In Old English not always possible to distinguish from forms of cwe:n
QUEEN n., with which there was a degree of overlap in sense (Old
English cwene is occas. attested in sense 'queen': see Dict. Old Eng.
s.v.).
In early Middle English the vowel was lengthened to open e:. Samuels
(Linguistic Evolution (1972) 68) observes that continuing currency in
sense 1 [above gloss--LH] is mostly confined to those regional
varieties in which this merger (and hence homophony with QUEEN n.)
did not occur.
============
And then, dating back to 1910, there's "quean" (sense 3) used in
sense 13 of "queen", viz. 'A male homosexual, typically one regarded
as ostentatiously effeminate'

So there are two distinct lexical items with very different meanings
(except when "queen" itself underwent pejoration in slang use or when
"quean" was used with the sense of "queen"), different spellings
(except when they were both spelled "queen"), and different
pronunciations (except when they were pronounced the same).

Talk about your lexicographer's nightmare!  Is there any literature
on this problem postdating Samuels (1972)?  (I ask in part because of
a paper I'm preparing on Gegensinn, the antithetical sense of primal
words.)

LH

>
>On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 11:13 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>  Subject:      Q:  Possible 1727 "queen" = male homosexual?
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  Is the following an introduction in 1727 of the word "queen" to refer
>>  to "A male homosexual, typically one regarded as ostentatiously
>>  effeminate"?
>>
>>  Boston Gazette, 1727 Jan 2-9, p. 1, col. 2.  [EAN]
>>
>>  London, October 20.
>>  Yesterday at Guildhall, at the Sessions of Oyer and Terminer held by
>>  Adjournment from the Old-Baily, one Thomas Coleman and John Irons
>>  alias Hihon (who used to go among the Sodomites by the Name of Queen
>>  Irons) were severally tryed and convicted for an Assault with an
>>  Intent to commit Sodomy ...
>>
>>  [The immediately following item in the BG is about the trial of a
>>  husband and wife for "keeping a disorderly House in entertaining
>>  Sodomites, and knowingly permitting them to commit the detestable Sin
>>  of Sodomy."]
>>
>>  Rictor Norton, at http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1726news.htm,
>>  has from The Weekly Journal: or, The British Gazetteer, 22 October
>>  1726: "[Last Monday] at Guildhall, at the Sessions of Oyer and
>>  Terminer held by Adjournment from the Old-Baily, one Thomas Coleman,
>>  and John Irons alias Hihon [according to The British Journal, William
>>  Coleman and John Hyons] (who used to go among the Sodomites by the
>  > Name of Queen Irons) were severally tryed and convicted for an
>>  Assault with Intent to commit Sodomy ..."
>>
>>  See also _Who's who in gay and lesbian history: from antiquity to
>>  World War II_, Volume 1,  ed. Robert Aldrich, Garry Wotherspoon (2002
>>  [and/or 2001?]), p. 117, for "mollies" adopting feminine
>>  names.   [Google Books, Preview.]
>>
>>  Joel
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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