Thursday, January 26, 2012

How did the word "gay" end up referring to homosexuals?

Gay as we all know in the English meaning meant to be in a happy mood.We combine gay as meaning to someone who is happy.By a strange re-adjustment of the meaning the word "Gay" was used to one who is a homosexual.Who on earth gave this bizarre twist to the word "Gay"?How did the word "gay" end up referring to homosexuals?
The use of the term gay, as it relates to homosexuality, arises from an extension of the sexualised connotation of "carefree and uninhibited", implying a willingness to disregard conventional or respectable sexual mores. Such usage is documented as early as the 1920s. It was initially more commonly used to imply heterosexually unconstrained lifestyles, as for example in the once-common phrase "gay Lothario",[3] or in the title of the book and film The Gay Falcon (1941), which concerns a womanizing detective whose first name is "Gay". Well into the mid 20th century a middle-aged bachelor could be described as "gay" without any implication of homosexuality.



A passage from Gertrude Stein's Miss Furr %26amp; Miss Skeene (1922) is possibly the first traceable published use of the word to refer to a homosexual relationship, though it is not altogether clear whether she uses the word to mean lesbianism or happiness:



They were ...gay, they learned little things that are things in being gay, ... they were quite regularly gay.



The 1929 musical Bitter Sweet by Noel Coward contains another use of the word in a context that strongly implies homosexuality. In the song "Green Carnation", four overdressed, 1890s dandies sing:



Pretty boys, witty boys, You may sneer



At our disintegration.



Haughty boys, naughty boys,



Dear, dear, dear!



Swooning with affectation...



And as we are the reason



For the "Nineties" being gay,



We all wear a green carnation.



The song title alludes to Oscar Wilde, who famously wore a green carnation, and whose homosexuality was well known. However, the phrase "gay nineties" was already well-established as an epithet for the decade (a film entitled The Gay Nineties; or, The Unfaithful Husband was released in the same year). The song also drew on familiar satires on Wilde and Aestheticism dating back to Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience (1881). Because of its continuation of these public usages and conventions 鈥?in a mainstream musical 鈥?the precise connotations of the word in this context remain ambiguous.



Other usages at this date involve some of the same ambiguity as Coward's lyrics. Bringing Up Baby (1938) was the first film to use the word gay in apparent reference to homosexuality. In a scene where Cary Grant's clothes have been sent to the cleaners, he must wear a lady's feathery robe. When another character inquires about his clothes, he responds "Because I just went gay...all of a sudden!"[4] However, since this was a mainstream film at a time when the use of the word to refer to homosexuality would still be unfamiliar to most film-goers, the line can also be interpreted to mean "I just decided to do something frivolous". There is much debate about what Grant meant with the ad-lib (the line was not in the script). The word continued to be used with the dominant meaning of "carefree", as evidenced by the title of The Gay Divorcee (1934), a musical film about a heterosexual couple. It was originally to be called The Gay Divorce after the play on which it was based, but the Hays Office determined that while a divorcee may be gay, it would be unseemly to allow a divorce to appear so.



By the mid-century "gay" was well-established as an antonym for "straight" (respectable sexual behaviour), and to refer to the lifestyles of unmarried and or unattached people. Other connotations of frivolousness and showiness in dress ("gay attire") led to association with camp and effeminacy. This range of connotation probably affected the gradual movement of the term towards its current dominant meaning, which was at first confined to subcultures. The subcultural usage started to become mainstream in the 1960s, when gay became the term predominantly preferred by homosexual men to describe themselves. Gay was the preferred term since other terms, such as "queer" were felt to be derogatory. "Homosexual" was perceived as excessively clinical: especially since homosexuality was at that time designated as a mental illness, and "homosexual" was used by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) to denote men affected by this "mental illness". Homosexuality was no longer classified as an illness in the DSM by 1973, but the clinical connotation of the word was already embedded in society.
I know I know I know

Gay meant happy along time ago and homos were never sad, you know any homos that are sad? no, they are all happy, never met one gay person who was Not Happy, they are all Happy and cheerful.How did the word "gay" end up referring to homosexuals?
because straight men arent happy
It might be related to being happy. I hope...

I just want to know whose dumb idea it was to relate 'gay' to something negative like the kids say, "Oh that is so GAY." It has nothing to do with homosexuality. That's wrong to use a word that already has dibs. That's like using the N word for some teenage slang word. That's messed up.How did the word "gay" end up referring to homosexuals?
GAY stands for Good As You
I agreed with milkbone but the explanation a bit too detailed.

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