Q: Possible 1727 "queen" = male homosexual?

[Wilson Gray]

Good on you. Larry! Been wondering about that myself for dekkids.

As for "Queen Latifah," that's merely a pswaydo-Islamic version of
names of the type, "Queen Esther," common from at least the days when
Mother was a girl (1913-1934), just as, e.g. _Lady Percy_, _LaDoris_,
and _Dolores del Rio_ (first name of a college classmate, back in
Saint Louis) predate today's pswaydo-stereotypical _LaKeisha_ et al.
and, among male names, the artist again known by his actual name,
Prince (Nelson), 1958-, is way preceded by Prince (Hall), c.1735-1807,
the father of colored Freemasonry.

-Wilson

On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 10:55 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Q: Possible 1727 "queen" = male homosexual?
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>
> 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:
>>
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>>>  -----------------------
>>>  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
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>
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--
-Wilson
–––
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.
–Mark Twain

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