Gay: So It Goes

Frank Kameny archive.

Reclaiming words, when done effectively, is all about power, Thorne [Tony, curator of the Slang And New Language Archive] tells me. “Reappropriation of ethnic and sexual slurs starts as an act of bravado by a few of the oppressed, then may become an empowering mechanism for a much wider community. It’s pleasingly ironic that those discriminated against have learned the Orwellian trick employed by the state and the establishment of hijacking everyday language (as in ‘doublespeak’) for their own nefarious purposes. Alternative discourse ousts and replaces the discourses of power.”

Paul Baker, professor of English Language at Lancaster University, agrees. “Control language and you control the society,” he says...

Reclaiming words is not a new phenomenon. Thorne points out: “Reversing pejoratives has a long history going back to cavalier, sans-culotte, Tory and Whig.” [Or Christian or communist - FB]. 

Modern reclaiming has had mixed success. He says: “Recently such terms as slut, gay and ginger (and to some extent nerd and geek) have been rebranded – perhaps with a tinge of irony.” As someone who has been all five of those things, I can safely say that some have been better reclaimed than others.

Paul Baker says; “Queer was reclaimed by academics and activists in the early 1990s. There was a shouty defiance about queer too – it wasn’t just pride, it was political activism and opposition to homophobic government policy like section 28. It was a disruptive and anarchic response to conservative forces at that time. But in reality very few people actually engaged with this wider ‘anything against the normal’ meaning of queer.
 
“That’s one of the problems with reclaiming concepts: not only do you have a set of people who don’t understand that the word has been reclaimed in the first place, so they continue to use it in the older negative way, but you can also have different understandings of what the reclaiming actually means. And even if you’re in on it, you still may not want to participate.” We are seeing a similar thing play out now with the word “gay”...

Gary Nunn, in his monthly Guardian blog, Mind Your Language.

Note the irony of how quickly 'queer' became re-reclaimed; it's now usually used as an empty signifier of 'radicalism' by homosexualists who are about as radical as a wobbly pink blancmange.

Fagburn wonders if the word 'gay' - which has been reclaimed as a pejorative - will eventually go the same way as 'sod' and 'bugger', and become completely detatched from its homosexual meaning.

PS The UK release of the documentary Do I Sound Gay? 'inspired' a discussion on Woman's Hour today, Is there a gay dialect? (!), where Lucy Jones, an assistant professor of sociolinguistics, made the incredibly silly claim that polari was used as a code - no, it was just slang. If  'academic experts' just repeat nonsense they Googled and don't get picked up on it, no wonder we are doomed...

Polari: The Lost Language Of Omi Polones

Some gay people – men in particular – did indeed used to speak their own language. Of sorts. It was less a language and more of a cant – a coded lexicon used exclusively to avoid detection by unwanted outsiders. That could’ve been the police, disapproving conservative society, or simply the group on the table next to you that you were bitching about.

So the short answer is – gay people don’t speak their own language any more. But, in 1960s Britain, gay men in large cities – particularly London – came close to doing so. It’s now archaic because the oppressive conditions which brought it about have, encouragingly, evaporated into equality in Britain. But there’s a move from language lovers like myself to preserve and promote Polari as a kind of linguistic artefact – so the toils, battles, and cheeky, resilient character of those who spoke it are remembered and respected. I particularly enjoy using the Polari app, which gives etymologies and explanations of the full Polari lexicon as far as records exist. Every time you shake your phone, a randomizer flashes up a new Polari word on your screen. Fantabulosa! ...

A guest blog for OxfordWords by Gary Nunn. 

A good piece on a subject that's usually strewn with myths and misunderstandings.

It was slang, not really a 'language', but it wasn't really mainly about a hidden people needing to speak in code, as Nunn suggests. Almost all subcultures develop their own argot...

The Guardian: Mind Your Language

A Challenge To The Guardian: It's time to drop the word 'homosexual'

Gary Nunn, Guardian Mind Your Language Blog.
A good piece, but my main spat with The Guardian is how they more regularly use the ludicrously out-of-touch phrase "gays" (25,153 times according to their search engine), as opposed to "homosexuals" (8,937).
This contravenes The Guardian's Style Guide which says;
'gay - should be used as an adjective rather than a noun: a gay man, gay people, gay men and lesbians not "gays and lesbians"'
Gay men only use "gays" as an ironic dig at bigots.
I keep bringing it up with The Guardian Style people, and they always agree it's daft and offensive - so flip knows how all these "gays" keep slipping through the net.

Schools: "Do You Know Any Gay People?"

"Do you know any gay people?" asks Sir Ian McKellen asks. Silence. Heads shake. "Well, you do now. I'm gay." It's my turn to speak up. "You know two now. I used to go to this school – and I'm gay," I offer. "You know three now," a sixth-former chips in. The other pupils don't look too surprised, and he seems admirably comfortable in his sexuality. Silence. Then: "Erm. Well. You know four now." Heads shoot around to see a uniformed boy, leaning close to McKellen. Mouths fall slightly open – including mine – but nobody speaks. Then McKellen says, in that mellifluous voice of his, "Well. How about that? It turns out we all know quite a few more gay people than we thought we did."

'McKellen Takes Gay Tour To Schools', Gary Nunn in The Guardian.
Nice piece, but The Guardian has neglected to mention Gary Nunn is the former press officer for Stonewall. Oops!