Caitlyn Ralston
Professor Jelinek
ENC1102
10-20-16
Offensive Word Essay There are many things in this world that change over time. One of those things being the words and language we speak. We may think we know what a word means but everything has a past, and a hundred years ago that word could have meant something completely different. Words that we find very offensive and demeaning today have had a different meaning in the past and could have been a very positive and happy word. One of the many words that have changed its meaning over the years is the word “gay”. This word has definitely changed over the years and we use it in a completely different way today than we did even as recently as a hundred years ago. The word “gay” has been …show more content…
The definition that many people would give for the word would probably be that gay meant a homosexual male or female. If you look the word up on the Urban Dictionary website it comes up as a homosexual male or female or, “often used to describe something stupid or unfortunate, originating from homophobia, quite preferable among many teenage males in order to buff up their masculinity"(Gay). In recent years many people were using the word gay as a derogatory term to make someone feel like they were a loser or make them feel stupid because many people associated it with the homosexual community and consider homosexuality to be a negative thing. However, the word was not always used like this. In fact the Oxford English Dictionary definition is “Bright or lively-looking, esp. in colour; brilliant, showy” (Proxy). That is how the word was used for hundreds of years. When the word first started being used in France it was being solely used for that definition and did not have any sexual undertones. It wasn’t until around the eighteen hundreds that we saw the word gay start to move towards more of a sexual meaning. During that time lewd behavior would have been aligned with “the gay life”. In a book published in 1811 called the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue the word gay was said to be a slang term for the penis (The History). During this time however it was still not associated with just homosexual behavior. In the nineteen hundreds female street walkers and prostitutes were called gay girls. The word gay however did not become the slang term for homosexuals until the early nineteen hundreds, and when it did it was actually homosexuals themselves who started referring to themselves as gay men. By the nineteen seventy-three,
Professor Jelinek
ENC1102
10-20-16
Offensive Word Essay There are many things in this world that change over time. One of those things being the words and language we speak. We may think we know what a word means but everything has a past, and a hundred years ago that word could have meant something completely different. Words that we find very offensive and demeaning today have had a different meaning in the past and could have been a very positive and happy word. One of the many words that have changed its meaning over the years is the word “gay”. This word has definitely changed over the years and we use it in a completely different way today than we did even as recently as a hundred years ago. The word “gay” has been …show more content…
The definition that many people would give for the word would probably be that gay meant a homosexual male or female. If you look the word up on the Urban Dictionary website it comes up as a homosexual male or female or, “often used to describe something stupid or unfortunate, originating from homophobia, quite preferable among many teenage males in order to buff up their masculinity"(Gay). In recent years many people were using the word gay as a derogatory term to make someone feel like they were a loser or make them feel stupid because many people associated it with the homosexual community and consider homosexuality to be a negative thing. However, the word was not always used like this. In fact the Oxford English Dictionary definition is “Bright or lively-looking, esp. in colour; brilliant, showy” (Proxy). That is how the word was used for hundreds of years. When the word first started being used in France it was being solely used for that definition and did not have any sexual undertones. It wasn’t until around the eighteen hundreds that we saw the word gay start to move towards more of a sexual meaning. During that time lewd behavior would have been aligned with “the gay life”. In a book published in 1811 called the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue the word gay was said to be a slang term for the penis (The History). During this time however it was still not associated with just homosexual behavior. In the nineteen hundreds female street walkers and prostitutes were called gay girls. The word gay however did not become the slang term for homosexuals until the early nineteen hundreds, and when it did it was actually homosexuals themselves who started referring to themselves as gay men. By the nineteen seventy-three,