"Fagged Out"

[SeattlePioneer]

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I don't think a 911 call to the language police is needed in this case:

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagging

 

 

 

 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fag+out

 

 

 

 

"fagged out" is a colloquial term for "tired."

[CalicoPenn]

It may be a colloquial term for tired but in some places, using it will get you beat upside the head with a size 12 high heel shoe if you get my drift (and if you don't, look up Stonewall)

 

 

[Oak Tree]

I think if you use the term, you have to say it with a British accent.

[83Eagle]

"Gay" will never again be "happy."

 

Saying that someone left a "niggardly" tip will probably get you tossed out of the restaurant.

 

You might be tempted to "smoke a fag" but someone might turn you in for a hate crime.

 

Language evolves--or devolves--and unfortunately some terms are best left on the pages of the dictonary.

[OldGreyEagle]

See, from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fagot

 

1. A bundle of twigs, sticks, or branches bound together.

2. A bundle of pieces of iron or steel to be welded or hammered into bars.

tr.v. fagoted also faggoted, fagoting also faggoting, fagots also faggots

1. To bind into a fagot; bundle.

2. To decorate with fagoting.

 

Way back when I was in High School, history was a lot easier as so much of it hadn't happened yet and having a fagot was a colloquial term for a cigarette, I was told this came from the bundling of sticks together to sell to people to burn in their stoves/fire places.

 

Language is dynamic, to quote a line from the movie "Fame"

 

I remember when gay was a happy word

[Eagle92]

Yep I kinda freaked out when I was in the UK and one of my fellow 'service crew" members asked, 'do you want a fag," referring to a cigarette.

 

Then I caused some problems when I was teaching some Girl Guides to shoot, using a reverse V sign to demonstrate what a rear sight looks like. I was later called into the warden's office and explained that the sign I made means "go forth and multiply."

 

But the most funny was when I was asked to put on a Native American dance, and went shopping for some items I left behind. I went looking for a Vest, and was promptly shown to the bras in the lingerie section of the store. Told that story at the pub and everyone laughed.

[eisely]

Even earlier the Bolsheviks made the word "comrade" socially unacceptable in most circles.

[SeattlePioneer]

Do people want to compile a dictionary of verbotten language?

 

Perhaps we could burn all the books that contain words people to which some people object these days.

 

Actually, homosexuals have been pretty tolerant about such things, even adopting the objectionable term "queer" for their own use rather commonly.

 

I might add that when I saw the objection to this word, I took the time to look it up to see if it had a real hateful history of usage towards homosexuals. If that had been the case, the objection to its usage would be reasonable.

 

But it doesn't. It simply doesn't have such an implication. With that understanding, it really seems unreasonable to object to the term, unless you want to suggest that it might offend the ignorant.

 

I'm not agreeable to giving the language police that kind of power.

 

 

I might add that I DO object to the popular use of the term "homophobic" which I do consider to be hate language. It's commonly used to drip contempt upon people the user despises, with the added implication that the person it's directed at is sick, since it's a pseudo scientific term.

 

It's not really a scientific term, it's a term from politics used for rather base reasons, although the left has been polishing up and popuklarizing the usage of this hate language for thirty years or more.

 

But you can object to that usage all you want and it's rare you will find anyone using it willing to give it up.

(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

[qwazse]

I refuse to relegate any part of this vast and wonderful language to vulgarity simply because once upon a time people relegated homosexuals to little more that "wood for the bonfire."

 

When I tell my boys to gather faggots for the evening's ceremonies, they know not to give me guff. Being a quintessential gay white male, I insist we take celebration seriously!

 

-- NEFS*

 

*No Euphemisms for Sodomy

[Eamonn]

I very often am asked about things that are said in England.

The ones that seem to get the most attention are Fag meaning cigarette and asking to be knocked up early in the morning -Asking for a wake up call.

Anyone who has read Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes will remember how the older boys in English Public Schools had younger boys who were expected to do tasks like polishing their shoes and the like. These young Lads were known as Fags.

 

While nearly all the homosexual men I know seem to be OK being called Gay, one informed me that Fagot was way over the top. He said that the term came from the bundles of sticks that were used in the days when homosexuals were burnt alive.

I don't know how true this is or isn't.

 

There are times when I still talk "English" -Yes I still watch the telly and the dogs get their Tea at 1700 hours each night. (Please don't tell anyone but we have a little Time for our tea song which we sing).

Even after more than a quarter of a century I still have my accent, I can't see me ever losing it. But I do think we need to take care not to use words or terms that even if used innocently offend others.

Eamonn.

[qwazse]

I know I'm pushing upstream on this.

 

But, if indeed the act is no longer offensive, then "homosexual" or "Sodomite" should do. There's no need to hide behind "gay" (as if grandma's ears would be less scandalized), and in turn no one should be relegated to the status of "faggot" (as if anyone thinks we still burn heretics).

 

Maybe in a few decades when one of our boys are over in England and someone asks him for a "fag", he'll make the appropriate connection.

 

Well this is fagging me out, and I still have roundtable tonight, so ta ta for now.

[acco40]

Eamonn - care to relate the origin of the term "dog's breakfast"? Bollocks?

 

[Eamonn]

acco40,

Not sure about "Dogs Breakfast" I use the term "Dogs Dinner"

Normally related to a big pile of food that has been heaped on a plate with no sense of presentation.

Kinda like some people heap leftovers in a dogs bowl.

As for Bollocks.

I have heard it used as a term for messing things up. As in "You made a real bollocks of that".

But most times it is a mild swear word, much like we now use balls and is used in place of testicles.

That's why back in the day there was such a fuss about the Sex Pistols album "Never Mind The Bollocks".

Some people found it to be offensive.

Ea.

 

 

[shortridge]

Mods, shouldn't this be in Issues & Politics?

 

OK, try explaining to a 12-year-old boy that "fagged out" means tired, or that a "faggot" is a bundle of sticks, or that a "fag" is a cigarette. They'll snort disdainfully, walk away, and think you're an idiot. The word doesn't mean the same thing these days, and as people who work with youth, we need to realize that.

 

When the dominant meaning of a word has taken on a negative or even questionable connotation, and there are plenty of other acceptable words to use in the language, we don't need to go out of our way to use the one word that many people find offensive. Especially when most people outside Scouting think we're bigoted against gay people to begin with, thanks to Irving. Do we really need to cultivate that kind of reputation?

 

"I might add that when I saw the objection to this word, I took the time to look it up to see if it had a real hateful history of usage towards homosexuals. If that had been the case, the objection to its usage would be reasonable. But it doesn't. It simply doesn't have such an implication. With that understanding, it really seems unreasonable to object to the term, unless you want to suggest that it might offend the ignorant."

 

Do a Google search for the string "faggot slur." See what comes back. I'll wait. OK. Do you still think it doesn't have a "real hateful history of usage towards homosexuals"?

 

(As an aside to the people who think it's OK to use "fag" or "queer" because some gay people have appropriated the term for their own use: Would you also use a certain word that begins with the letter "N" because some black people have appropriated the term for their own use? Does it thus become OK?)

 

I'm a writer. I work with words for a living, and thus try to be very sensitive to their meanings. I don't consider myself a member of the "language police" by any means, but I have seen far too many incidents where the English language has been used as a blunt object by people ignorant of its nuances.(This message has been edited by shortridge)

[Scoutfish]

I take two sides to this issue( which has many, many sides to it).

 

In the first place, If somebody says something that could be taken as an offense by me..I do not sweat it. I am only offended if I choose to be. I can just as easily laugh that person off. Letting them offend me give them power over me and I do not allow that!

 

Also, I go by what they meant, not what I might take the word to me. And in an example of this thread.....If a person of British persuasion was to say how much the hate fags and how bad they stink..I would not take it as a racial slur, but I'd take oit in the way they mean it to mean.

 

There is no sense in convincing another country or culture that their word is bad just because our contry thinks so.

 

It's the intent of the delivered message that matters, not the way I use it, or think it could be used.

 

 

 

Now, having said that, I do not condone people who use such word of hatred in a callous and spiteful way and then try to pretend they are justified in it's original meaning. For example: If my son and his friends kept calling each other gay at every chance, and were constantly luaghing about it...but tried to say : "We are only calling each other happy." in an attempt to get away with it...I'd be getting out the soap!

 

 

 

You know the worst part? That we spend so much time arguing why it should be accepted in it's spitefull and hatefull hijacked way and be tabboo instead of taking back the language as it was originally intended.

 

At this rate, we might not want to say we are "scouts" lest we be associated as on equal grounds as Nazis or White Supreamacists.