[Ads-l] Antedating of "Lavender" (Homosexual)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Intriguing results, Bill.

It is true that the metadata for the copy of the book "Act of Anger"
by Bart Spicer in the Internet Archive says 1913. Also, the book
begins with a page that says "Great Britain in 1913". Nevertheless,
the book apparently was first published in 1962 according to WorldCat
and this blurb in "The New York Times".

Date: July 19, 1962
Newspaper: The New York Times
Newspaper Location: New York
Article: Books and Authors
Quote Page 25, Column 2 and 3
Database: ProQuest

[Begin excerpt]
Murder and politics and how they affect the lives of a Southwest
ranching community are the subjects of a new novel by Bart Spicer
called "Act of Anger." The hero is a lawyer.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 4:32 PM Bill Mullins <amcombill at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> 1913 Bart Spicer Act of Anger 227
>
> "You can't go about killing for such a reason.  Not saying the lavender boys aren't offensive.  Stench in the nostrils, as a matter of actual fact.  But if buggering a boy were a killing matter, half the people I went to school with would be dead long ago."
>
> https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.126182/page/n230/mode/1up?q=lavender
>
>
>
> 1927 McGill Daily 16 Feb 2/3
>
> Lesbians and lavender men
> Do not attract each other;
> Why is it?
> I have asked the Students' Council
> But they will not tell me --
> Or they do not know
>
> Why lavender men do not attract
> Lesbians . . . . . . . . . .
> Euphorian (Texas)
>
> https://archive.org/details/McGillLibrary-mcgill-daily-v16-n104-february-16-1927-7456/page/n1/mode/1up?q=lavender
>
>
> And I recall that, in The Maltese Falcon, Joel Cairo's handkerchief was "lavender-barred".
>
>
>
>
>
> ----
>
> On Sat, Oct 22, 2022 at 9:07 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> > lavender, adj. (homosexual) (OED 1973)
> >
> > 1932 Hollywood Reporter 7 Jan. 2
> >
>
> Fred neglected to give the text of the cite -- I tracked it down on
> ProQuest:
>
> ---
> Hollywood Reporter, Jan. 7, 1932, p. 2, col. 1
> Despite the "law" against nance entertainers, the hottest speakeasy spot in
> N.Y. is on Sixth Avenue, with fifty lavender boys serving the likker --
> Greta Garbo, Fifi Dorsay and Joe Schenck among its patrons.
> ---
>
> I see this is quoted in Laura Horak's book _Girls Will Be Boys:
> Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema, 1908-1934_ (2016), as
> well as an earlier article by Horlak ("Queer Crossings: Greta Garbo,
> National Identity, and Gender Deviance") in the edited volume _Silent
> Cinema and the Politics of Space_ (2014).
>
> Worth noting that GDoS has a bracketed 1870 cite and a 1928 cite from Mae
> West for "lavender" meaning "a euph. for homosexual and anything referring
> to homosexuality; also as n., homosexuality."
>
> ---
> Caution-https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/72bt4aa
> [1870 [UK] ‘The Ninety-Ninth Hussars’ in Songs for the Army 46: Sir
> Lavender Silk was a pretty young man, [...] / His men, though respectful,
> had thoughts of their own / Which might have spoke out if they chose, /
> That Sir Lavender Silk had the aspect alone / Of a Lady dressed up in men’s
> clothes!].
> 1928 [US] M. West Pleasure Man (1997) Act I: stanley: And don’t you annoy
> the boys, Violet. paradise: Lavender, maybe, but violet never.
> ---
>
> Also, in his 1926 book _Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years_ (p. 166), Carl
> Sandburg said of Lincoln's close friend Joshua Speed, "A streak of lavender
> ran through him; he had spots soft as May violets" and "Lincon too had... a
> streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets."
>
> Caution-https://books.google.com/books?id=iEUoAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA166
>
> Historians have argued about whether Sandburg was implying a homosexual
> relationship between Lincoln and Speed, but elsewhere in the book "streak
> of lavender" appears to mean something like "sentimentality." That's more
> along the lines of Cole Porter's 1929 song, "I'm a Gigolo" (quoted in OED's
> 1997 draft addition): "I'm a famous gigolo, and of lavender, my nature's
> got just a dash in it."
>
> --bgz
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - Caution-http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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