"gay" redux

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Mon Nov 5 20:19:03 UTC 2012


At 11/5/2012 12:30 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
>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.

Does Cary Grant mince in the feathered nightgown scene in "Bringing Up Baby"?

Joel

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