"X is gay"

Anonus

I dislike "gay" being used as a pejorative adjective.

Super Lazuli

This thread is gay.

Central Avenue

^ Wow. That was predictable. Groaned.

glennmagusharvey

your gay

Trash_Vortex

My gay?

Gelzo

I dislike when people think using "gay" as a pejorative adjective is a dig against homosexuals. 

Ponicalica

Gelzo: It kinda is.

glennmagusharvey

Yes, your gay.

Gelzo

^^But.. but... context...

TheMightyAnonym

You're gay, dangit!

glennmagusharvey

No, your gay. It's showing.

Longfellow

My gay best friend?

glennmagusharvey

...I doubt anyone else appreciates this, but I really like how I figured out the grammatically ambiguous line I put in my last post.  It works both if you assume "gay" is a noun and if you assume "your" means "you're".

Longfellow

Cos of the wide range of antecedents "it" can have. It does a fucking lot of grammatical heavy lifting in English.

glennmagusharvey

I love how your antecedent was it...self.

Tnophelia

I love my womenz

Khwarizmi

@Gelzo: It's not really context that's the issue.  If I was to say «Dude that is so black» instead of «Dude that is so gay», OK it would sound stupid but it would also be obviously racist.

The implication is that «gay» is a bad thing.  This is not always the intention, but it still sometimes is, and there are still a lot of people who interpret it that way.

Gelzo

If I say I don't like a movie because it's cheesy, it's not because I don't like cheese.

Khwarizmi

Because «cheesy» is sufficiently removed from its original meaning that it doesn't typically make people think of actual cheese any more.  This is not the case with «gay»; if it was, very few people would be offended by it.

Gelzo

Same word different definitions. You can say your nachos were really cheesy, and you'd be hard pressed to find someone who would at first interpret that as the same cheesy that a movie can be. I don't see why gay can't be any different. I'd bet people just want to be politically correct.

To me and others I know personally, "gay" can be used to mean bad. This is a different use than "gay" used to mean homosexual. (I guess that's a little tautological, but...) I guess I can't speak for others, but I just don't associate the two definitions very strongly at all.

I'll admit that, the word even when used to mean "bad" has connotations that remind one of homosexuality the same way "a cheesy movie" can sometimes make you think of actual cheese, but I don't see the dairy industry running ad campaigns to get people to stop using the word this way. I'm sure people were eating just as much cheese once the word came to mean something of poor quality.

And yeah, sometimes the definitions can get blurred. What is stereotypically desirable to a straight man doesn't always overlap with what is stereotypically desirable to a gay man, so it would follow that there are times when something- let's say a musical- could be called gay, and the meaning could be somewhere between those definitions. If someone was describing something as gay and appeared both uncomfortable and disapproving of it, I might imagine that person could be using both definitions or was a person that believed that it's gay for something or someone to be gay. Such people exist, and I don't think the use of "gay" as bad is or should be limited to them

This could very well be a regional/cultural thing, though. I guess I'd have to be surprised if what I'm saying is accurate in all English-speaking communities. But I'm going to use and interpret language based on my own experiences, and not hearsay.

Anyway, this conversation of interpreting these things literally is reminding me of this bit by Louis CK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzbURUrgQao

glennmagusharvey

...fridge logic: Is X happy?

Gelzo

Hey, that's another definition of the word. If I say something is gay in a negative way, I'm certainly not implying it's bad to be happy. Nor would I imply that you have to be gay to be happy, or being gay means you're happy.

Khwarizmi

Well, maybe it is a regional thing.  But to my mind, there's enough of a close relationship between gay-as-a-pejorative and gay-meaning-homosexual that the use of the former seems likely to cause offence, and isn't something I'd ordinarily say.  It just seems rude.

I mean, words mean what people take them to mean.  To my knowledge, most people understand that when you use «gay» as a pejorative, it means «bad» because being gay is supposedly a bad thing.

And actually, it's etymologically derived directly from «gay» meaning «homosexual», and since our culture still commonly treats homosexuality as a shameful or slightly gross thing, it's hardly a wild assumption to believe that somebody using «gay» in a negative fashion feels negatively towards gay people.

Longfellow

Fridge logic: does X like X?

Saigyouji

No, X likes Zero. In some very strange fics, at least, I would assume.

Gelzo

"I mean, words mean what people take them to mean."

No, speech means what the speaker intended. If there's a difference between the understood meaning and the intended meaning, it's because of some failure in communication.

Words don't carry any inherent meaning. I could say "I shot the elephant in my pajamas." and mean that I was wearing pajamas. The structure of the sentence and the definitions of the words would also allow an interpretation that the elephant was wearing pajamas, but it's likely that the sentence doesn't mean this.

Hell, if a kid says "wa" and intends to communicate that her diaper is full, that's damn well what "wa" means, even if no one picks up on it.

"it's hardly a wild assumption to believe that somebody using «gay» in a negative fashion feels negatively towards gay people."

I think that's actually a bit prejudiced.

Khwarizmi

>No, speech means what the speaker intended.

How very Humpty Dumpty. :P

But it doesn't matter what meaning you intend a word to have if it won't be understood in that sense by your audience.  If I were to use «womanly» or «Irish» as a general term of contempt, whether I intended to be sexist or xenophobic would irrelevent, as I would certainly be perceived as such.  It's usually expected that the meaning the speaker intends will be that which he or she is most likely to be perceived as intending; that's the foundation upon which language rests.

>I think that's actually a bit prejudiced.

So if I were to use "black" or "womanly" as a pejorative, would a person be prejudiced if they assumed I felt negatively about black people or women?

glennmagusharvey

Well, there is the practice of describing something as "eww so girly".

Khwarizmi

Which does indeed imply that it is feminine, and unmanly, and will likely appeal to a (stereotypical) girl.

It's an odd case, because a combination of feminism and societal prejudices has led to the odd situation where a girl may dislike something for being too girly.

Gelzo

"It's usually expected that the meaning the speaker intends will be that which he or she is most likely to be perceived as intending"

Yes, I was aware of this with any points I've made, and I don't think any of them are inconsistent with this. It's just that there are times when the speaker misjudges what will be interpreted, but it doesn't mean what is said means something different.

^^Yes, I'm sure such a person would obviously be sexist.

Khwarizmi

I might assume they were slightly sexist, actually, depending on the context.

As for meaning, I don't believe any statement has inherent meaning.  It's all a matter of intent and interpretation.  If the interpretation is different from the intent, that's poor communication (miscommunication or misunderstanding, or both).

All I'm saying is, I would expect «gay» to imply a low opinion of homosexuals, since I think that's how most people understand the word.