Racism... i think.. -- LiveWire Teen Forums

Quote: from UltimaTaz at 3:28 pm on Sep. 13, 2008

Give me evidence that Gay meant happy.

1178, "full of joy or mirth," from O.Fr. gai "gay, merry," perhaps from Frank. *gahi (cf. O.H.G. wahi "pretty"). Meaning "brilliant, showy" is from c.1300. OED gives 1951 as earliest date for slang meaning "homosexual" (adj.), but this is certainly too late; gey cat "homosexual boy" is attested in N. Erskine's 1933 dictionary of "Underworld & Prison Slang;" the term gey cat (gey is a Scot. variant of gay) was used as far back as 1893 in Amer.Eng. for "young hobo," one who is new on the road and usually in the company of an older tramp, with catamite connotations. But Josiah Flynt ["Tramping With Tramps," 1905] defines gay cat as, "An amateur tramp who works when his begging courage fails him." Gey cats also were said to be tramps who offered sexual services to women. The "Dictionary of American Slang" reports that gay (adj.) was used by homosexuals, among themselves, in this sense since at least 1920. Rawson ["Wicked Words"] notes a male prostitute using gay in reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostitutes) in London's notorious Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889. Ayto ["20th Century Words"] calls attention to the ambiguous use of the word in the 1868 song "The Gay Young Clerk in the Dry Goods Store," by U.S. female impersonator Will S. Hays. The word gay in the 1890s had an overall tinge of promiscuity -- a gay house was a brothel. The suggestion of immorality in the word can be traced back to 1637. Gay as a noun meaning "a (usually male) homosexual" is attested from 1971.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php
The primary meaning of the word gay has changed dramatically during the 20th century�though the change evolved from earlier usages. It derives via the Old French gai, probably from a Germanic source. The word originally meant "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy" and was very commonly used with this meaning in speech and literature. For example, the title of the 1938 ballet aptly named Ga�t� Parisienne ("Parisian Gaiety"), a patchwork compiled from Jacques Offenbach's operettas, illustrates this connotation, and the optimistic 1890s are still often referred to as the Gay Nineties.
The word started to acquire sexual connotations in the late 17th century, being used with meaning "addicted to pleasures and dissipations". This was by extension from the primary meaning of "carefree": implying "uninhibited by moral constraints". By the late nineteenth century the term "gay life" was a well-established euphemism for prostitution and other forms of extramarital sexual behavior that were perceived as immoral.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=gay

"So sweet, so sweet the roses in their blowing,
So sweet the daffodils, so fair to see;
So blithe and gay the humming-bird a going
From flower to flower, a-hunting with the bee."
- Nora Perry, In June

Daffodils
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/111997

http://www.behindthename.com/name/gay

I guess looking at daffodils makes you into a fag. I mean only fag would even care about flowers.

D'ye ken John Peel with his coat so
gay,
D'ye ken John Peel at the break of
day,
D'ye ken John Peel when he's far away,
With his hounds and his horn in the
morning.

I bet his coat was red and made him look like a fag.
http://home.mweb.co.za/sa/salbu/JohnPeel.html

"Quickly recovers / Poor laughing lovers, / Makes us frolic and gay, / and drowns all our sorrows."

http://www.fermentersguild.com/fun_quotes.htm

Only a fag would drink wine I guess.

Those poets are so gay man. Total pussies.

Post edited at 2:18 pm on Sep. 14, 2008 by jakelong

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"Everyone helpin' each other whenever they can we makin' it happen, from nothin' to somethin'
That's how we be survivin'" - BEP

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