[Ads-l] Square-Bracket Antedating of "Gay" (Homosexual)

[dave@wilton.net]

Excellent find!
 
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From: "Shapiro, Fred" <00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2026 7:30pm
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: [ADS-L] Square-Bracket Antedating of "Gay" (Homosexual)



The earliest citation in the OED for "gay," meaning homosexual, was discovered by me and is dated 1934. There is a 1933 OED "gay" citation in square brackets (the OED uses square brackets to indicate that a citation is not strictly or certainly an example of the term in question). Below is a 1931 citation I have found for "gay." The earlier citation is similar to the 1933 cite and seemingly equally or more appropriate for square-bracket inclusion in the OED under sense 9.a. of the "gay" entry. It should be noted that "pansy" was a 1920s/1930s term for a flamboyant or effeminate man.

1931 Afro-American (Baltimore) 12 Sept. 15 (ProQuest) It was a costly affair, but those children of means had to be introduced by those older social Pansies in the proper way to the society Pansy colony of Baltimore, as it is done in every large city of important [sic] in America. ... Helen [sic] is not thinking at all about what such a game means. What it has done to others. She [sic] is a fresh bud now, but tomorrow she will be just another Pansy. The society he has given up never to return meant nothing to him, only the gay life of a Pansy as he saw it, that is carried on in that colony in Baltimore.

Fred Shapiro

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org