[Ads-l] Antedating of "Gaydar"

[Laurence Horn]

> On Jul 27, 2017, at 5:20 PM, David Kendal <me at DPK.IO> wrote:
> 
> Alas, I have to disappoint you again — GDoS has this 1982 citation:
> 
> 1982 [US] D. Shewey in Village Voice (N.Y.) 11 Feb. 42: But the fear of
> gay men is not to be discounted. My gaydar tells me that up to 30 per
> cent of the men at the Santa Fe and New York weekends are gay, bisexual,
> or undeclared.
> 
> 
> Incidentally, I forgot to mention in my previous email that today is
> the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which partially
> decriminalized homosexual acts in England and Wales for the first time.
> 
> The bill's sponsor in the House of Lords, the 8th Earl of Arran, later
> introduced another bill on badger conservation which failed. When asked
> why the controversial gay rights bill had passed while the seemingly
> benign nature conservation one failed, he allegedly said: ‘There are not
> many badgers in the House of Lords.’ The earliest citation I can find
> for this quote is only from 1978, though, and puts the words in someone
> else’s mouth, not his:
> <https://books.google.de/books?id=85BJAQAAIAAJ&q=%22badgers+in+the+house+of+lords%22>
> 
> Perhaps off-topic for the *American* Dialect Society list, but leads
> would nonetheless be appreciated.
> 

It’s actually the American [Dialect Society], not the [American Dialect] Society, so no problem with jurisdiction.

LH

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