[Ads-l] Second Oldest Clearcut Citation for "Gay" (Homosexual)

[Shapiro, Fred]

Belated response to Larry's question:  Yes, the ?1937 citation in OED seems to be the earliest known unambiguous illustration of _gay_ 'homosexual.'


Fred  Shapiro



________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, May 7, 2019 1:41 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Second Oldest Clearcut Citation for "Gay" (Homosexual)

> On May 7, 2019, at 10:07 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>
> The outhistory.org website has the following citation:
>
>
> Within the next two weeks it is quite likely I shall be going to East Orange for a drink at a bar and dinner. I have a friend who lives there (not gay, but with whom I discuss things freely) whose name is Byron Conklin. He lives at 160 Prospect Street with his mother. She would probably join us for that drink et al. Would you be interested in joining us? (Leo Adams to Wesley Lea, December 31, 1939)
>
>
> This is taken from the letters of Leo Adams, who was himself clearly homosexual, at the New York Public Library.  I believe this is the second oldest known clearcut citation for "gay" meaning "homosexual.”

Fred, do have this cite in the OED entry as representing the first unambiguous one?

?1937   Typescript (anon., ‘I was twenty years at the time’) (Univ. of Chicago Libr.: Ernest W. Burgess Papers, Box 98, Folder 11) 1   Al had told me that Kenneth was not gay but jam [i.e. heterosexual], and so I acted very manly.

 I assume the “?” Indicates that it’s impossible to date the typescript exactly.  Wonder whatever became of “jam”...


> (There are many other citations from the 1920s and 1930s that use "gay" in a homosexual context but are general or ambiguous in their signification.)

And there’s there the 1941 Legman entry, although even here the domain is somewhat wider than denoting just orientation, given the first disjunction:

_Gay_, an adjective used almost exclusively by homosexuals to denote homosexuality, sexual attractiveness, promiscuity..or lack of restraint, in a person, place, or party.

LH

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