early "gay" cite

Thu Sep 22 15:11:32 UTC 2011

JL suggests that using someone else's published ideas as if they are one's own is OK if done privately. I won't bother to argue with that.

JL believes that when Cary Grant uttered, in an ad lib that the director did not cut from the movie the words, "I've just gone gay all of a sudden," GRANT the actor MUST have bee using GAY in the sense 'homosexual' rather than (or as well as) what virtually everyone on the planet would have understood it to mean (the then-ordinary sense of 'showy, flashy', with the extended connotations of 'wild, decadent"). To agree with this one must confront the following questions:

(1) "Could the deeply closeted Grant have known the underworld sense of the term in 1937 or 1938?" (not impossible, given that he is thought to have been participating at the time in down-low activity)
(2) "Would the deeply closed actor have intended an arcane pun?" (not very likely--Why would he want to do that and risk compromising his secret identity? Who could he have been trying to impress? Maybe some cameraman he was having a secret affair with?)
(3) "Would the consummate professional Grant have made some kind of a Freudian slip?" (not very likely from one of the most professional actors of his day)
(4) "If it was a secret pun, what is the other leg of the pun, i.e., what is it that the audience--and the director--would have thought 'gay' meant in this context?" (the director obviously thought that the director knew what it meant--and it wasn't 'homosexual'; obviously, everyone would have thought it meant, 'showy, flashy, wild, decadent'; I suggest that the fact that he was scantily clad in frilly women's night garments merely ads to this sense)
(5) "If there is a legitimately inferable meaning for the word "gay" in Grant's utterance, one that virtually no one but Grant MIGHT have had any sense of when the movie was made, why would anyone today want to seek an arcane pun (or posit a Freudian slip)?" (nothing legitimate that I can see: well, there is always the obsessed lexicographer's desire to provide an antedating; and there is the 1980s-style gay subcultural desire to find gay content everywhere in history; and there is the naive heterosexual belief that putting a man in women's clothing MUST suggest some kind of 'homosexual' connotation). 

JL quibbles about my description of Grant in a woman's frilly nightgown as "scantily clad." This is a red herring. I obviously did not mean that his ass was showing. Such garments as he is wearing in the movie, even when worn by women, were intended only for private, intimate display. I meant to convey that for Grant's character to be wearing such garments in the presence of his girlfriend's blue-nosed aunt (a stranger to him besides) would have been somewhat shocking and would have suggested something that a slightly decadent person might have done at a wild (for the 1930s) drunken party--i.e., it was a "gay" (in the 1930s non-homosexual sense) thing to be doing: "I've just gone wild all of a sudden." At any rate, that is what the audience would have thought he meant. That is what the director would have thought he meant. That is what Grant would have thought they would take it to mean. It wasn't until GAY = 'homosexual' became the dominant sense of the word that anyone ever even thought that the word GAY as uttered in the movie could have possibly meant "I just turned homo all of a sudden."

As for the "gay follies," if my earlier posting suggested that I thought that Grant was thinking specifically of the words "gay follies" when he uttered his ad lib, then what I said was misleading. I meant only that "gay" was frequently used in the 1930s to describe somewhat decadent behavior, such as (for example) women dancing in frilly revealing garments on the stage (as they had in New York all during the 1920s).

On Sep 22, 2011, at 9:49 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> The following post was intended for everyone, but the magic of automatic
> addressing sent it to Ron only:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My post was intended for Joel, but the magic of automatic addressing sent it
>> to everyone.
>> Which is fine with me.
>> 
>> I'm not surprised that the mere appearance of the word "gay" in a gay novel
>> should excite attention; hence my cautionary "worth checking...however."
>> 
>> Grant was unlikely to be thinking of "gay follies" and scantily-clad girls.
>> First of all, he was hardly scantily clad in the scene, which makes the
>> association _prima facie_ unlikely.
>> 
>> Furthermore,  GB turns up few exx. of"gay follies" before 1950; only two or
>> three refer specifically to a stage show (at Cambridge in the mid '40s,
>> though Folies Bergere dancers are called, in passing, "gay" in one 1935
>> source); none seem to refer to scantily-clad people (the Folies girls are
>> having supper); and Grant could not have expected anybody to have caught
>> such an obscure allusion, had he intended it.
>> 
>> GB searches for "gay _folies_," "gaies folies," "folies gaies," in
>> anglophone sources are equally futile, and nearly as futile in French ones.
>> 
>> NewspaperArchive reveals a racehorse named "Gay Follies," active in Texas
>> in the mid- '30s. Relevance: none.
>> 
>> In any event, why so many people should want to believe that Cary Grant was
>> sending them a coded message in 1938 is a question I'm not ready to answer.
>> 
>> JL
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 8:56 AM, Ron Butters <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> As JK knows, I PUBLISHED an article in Dictionaries a number of years ago
>>> that says everything that he says here, except that I also question that the
>>> deeply closeted Cary Grant would have made such a slip of the tongue--except
>>> that I point out that "gay" as Grant's character is using it is most likely
>>> just a reference to the then-current sense of a "gay folies" performance
>>> having to do with scantily clad female dancers. The ad lib sarcastically
>>> explains why  Grant is wearing Hepburn's sexy dressing gown; homosexuality
>>> has nothing to do with it. As for SCARLET PANSY, the term is indeed in a
>>> novel about the gay subculture, but the word "gay" is not used in a way
>>> there that is markedly different from the way it is used in the general
>>> population's slang in the 1930s, as I have noted here before.  Just because
>>> a gay novelist uses the word "gay" that does not mean that a pun on
>>> 'homosexual' was intended.
>>> 
>>> The 1941 cite that JL mentions is the earliest clear reference.
>>> 
>>> This has all been discussed on ADS-L many times, by the way.
>>> Sent from my Droid Charge on Verizon 4GLTE
>>> 
>>> ------Original Message------
>>> From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>>> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Date: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 10:00:56 PM GMT-0400
>>> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] early "gay" cite
>>> 
>>> Joel,
>>> 
>>> HDAS has a seemingly unequivocal "gay" from 1933 and an absolutely
>>> unequivocal one from 1941. The 1933 source is a sub rosa gay novel. (If
>>> the
>>> word had been used more than once at so early a date, I think I would have
>>> noted that.)
>>> 
>>> Thus no brackets around the Grant quote seemed necessary to ye HDAS
>>> editor,
>>> who was reluctant to accept it as a genuine ex., until he and several
>>> other
>>> natural-born skeptics (incl. Jesse Sheidlower) could think of no other
>>> convincing explanation.
>>> 
>>> Of course, HDAS I appeared seventeen years ago, which means it may as well
>>> never have  existed as far as today's scholars are concerned.
>>> 
>>> The Hollywood censors obviously never thought twice about the word, and of
>>> course the meaning didn't become universally familiar till the '60s. The
>>> possibility, no matter how remote, that the censors *would* have caught
>>> it,
>>> is one reason to doubt that Grant intended it that way. But if the quip
>>> was
>>> truly spontaneous, he may not have had time to catch himself. The fact
>>> that
>>> the director didn't yell "Cut!" indicates just how arcane the usage must
>>> have been.
>>> 
>>> Regardless, I don't think Grant could have "intended it for those in the
>>> know," though that seems to be a popular assumption. The censors might
>>> been
>>> "in the know," and that might have caused problems for him in 1938.  More
>>> to
>>> the point, I doubt that Grant was trying to send a  wink-wink nudge-nudge
>>> signal to anybody through the dubious means of a spontaneous quip in the
>>> middle of screen dialogue ("coming out of the closet," so to speak, in
>>> front
>>> of ten million filmgoers). I assume it just slipped out because it seemed
>>> so
>>> aptly funny to him.
>>> 
>>> But there's no way to know, is there?
>>> 
>>> Jon
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 7:35 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:      Re: early "gay" cite
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> 
>>>> Jon,
>>>> 
>>>> If this from 1932/1933/1937 can be confirmed as really referring to
>>>> homosexuality, will you consent to removing the square brackets
>>>> surrounding the OED's 1938 quotation from "Bringing Up Baby"?   :-)
>>>> 
>>>> And perhaps they could be removed from some of the other 1922 to 1941
>>>> OED quotations as well.  (I don't have HDAS on line or shelf.)
>>>> 
>>>> (I note that Ron Butters once wrote "1. The remark was an ad lib,
>>>> made up by Grant himself." and "3. Thus the audience in the late
>>>> 1930s would certainly not have known GAY = 'homosexual' (except maybe
>>>> some gay people themselves, who at the time preferred QUEER or THAT
>>>> WAY as terms of self-reference."
>>>> 
>>>> (What the audience would not know is not evidence of Grant's intended
>>>> meaning, *particularly* if it was an ad lib.  And it does not have to
>>>> be a pun; it could be simply intended for those in the know.)
>>>> 
>>>> Joel
>>>> 
>>>> At 9/21/2011 05:50 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>>>> Worth checking. HDAS quotes earlier McAlmon writings, however, none of
>>>> which
>>>>> appeared to me to use the word in the given sense.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The word he preferred in _A Companion Volume_ (1923) was "queer."
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> JL
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <
>>>>> Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>>> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
>>>>>> Subject:      early "gay" cite (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>>>>>> Caveats: NONE
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Natalie Galustian's "Catalogue of Early Gay Fiction"
>>>>>> http://www.nataliegalustian.com/theyWereWhatTheyWere.pdf
>>>>>> includes four editions of "Scarlet Pansy" by Robert Scully (probably
>>> a
>>>>>> pseud. for Robert McAlmon), published as far back as 1932.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The catalogue quotes Hugh Hagius as saying "McAlmon is, I believe,
>>> the
>>>>>> first writer to use 'gay' in the sense of same-sex orientation."
>>> And
>>>>>> Fred Shapiro in a Jul 15 2003 ADS-L posts quotes part of a Gary
>>> Simes
>>>>>> article which has citations from "Scarlet Pansy" which support this.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The citations are not given any significant context by Simes, and
>>> the
>>>>>> auction catalogue doesn't elaborate either, but it is clear that the
>>>>>> book is full of gay content.
>>>>>> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>>>>>> Caveats: NONE
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
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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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>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>>> truth."
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>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
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