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

[Bill Mullins]

If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

>
> ----
>
> 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."
> >
> > Caution-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)
> >
> > Caution--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".
> >
>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 - Caution-http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - Caution-http://www.americandialect.org

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