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bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
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 Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:39 pm Post subject: For many years, the English were just a bunch of girls! |
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It's true.
As an interesting testament to how language changes over time, the word, "girl" was used to describe a young person of either sex.
Some more interesting ones...
The word, "silly" used to mean happy.
The word, "nice" used to mean ignorant.
Etymology is the study of the history of words. Sounds kind of fun, doesn't it?
See www.etymonline.com for more.
Try typing in the F-word on that site, and you'll be amazed to learn that the word has been around since at least the 1600's, and possibly earlier, as the written form of the word was forbidden in books. |
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Bigfeet
Joined: 29 May 2008
Location: Grrrrr.....
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:51 pm Post subject: |
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| The word "handsome" used to apply to pretty women too. |
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Fishead soup
Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Gay used to be happy. Until the seventies came and it was cool to look miserable. |
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bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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From that site, linked above:
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Gay:
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. |
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Bigfeet
Joined: 29 May 2008
Location: Grrrrr.....
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Pink used to be a manly color. |
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