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Young, Nazi and Proud
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grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: schizothreadic
Nov 05, 2002, 13:42
Forgive me, but i think you miss the point. I am not arguing either in favour of, or against, the use of the word "gay". I am merely using it as an example of cultural-linguistic evolution outpacing the dictionaries.

Gay is now defined, broadly speaking, to mean "homosexual" in most dictionaries. This is a simple fact. There's no value statement being made. At one stage it wasn't; it was defined to mean "cheerful".

I was merely pointing out that the word had completely changed meaning long before the dictionaries caught up (which they eventually did). This is just history - a demonstration of the absurdity of believing languages ae locked in dictionaries. My point has got absolutely nothing to do with either meaning of the word. *Nobody* (except the dictionary and a retired army major in Cheltenham) used the word "gay" to mean "cheerful" after about 1984. Yet it was the early 90s before the dictionaries caught up.
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