"gay" redux (UNCLASSIFIED)

Mullins, Bill AMRDEC Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL
Mon Nov 5 17:30:11 UTC 2012


Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE



> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of W Brewer
> Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2012 9:17 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "gay" redux
>
>
> BZ: <<<the sense doesn't become prominent in print till the late
> '60s>>>
> WB: Even granting an equivocal starting point of 1933 for _gay_
> 'homosexual', the only important point is the rate diffusion of this
> semantic change through the Anglophone and Anglologue communities. My
> epiphany came in 1969: that's one point. In hindsight, for me,
Bringing
> up Baby 1938 and Jack Benny 1936 are solid attestations of a limited
> spread of insider knowledge; the vocal and visual cues are
unambiguous.
> Add more unequivocal data, especially non-written sources, to build up
> a solid argument, instead of mincing words about obscure references.
> Amen.
>

"mincing" -- I saw what you did there.

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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