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Gay means rubbish, says BBC
By Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent
The Times June 06, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2212170,00.html
THE word “gay” now means “rubbish” in modern playground-speak and need not be offensive to homosexuals, the BBC Board of Governors has ruled.
A listener complained after Chris Moyles dismissed a ringtone by saying on his Radio 1 breakfast show: “I don’t want that one, it’s gay.”
The complainant argued that the use of the word gay in this context was homophobic. The governors said, however, that Moyles was simply keeping up with developments in English usage.
The programme complaints committee noted: “The word ‘gay’, in addition to being used to mean ‘homosexual’ or ‘carefree’, was often now used to mean ‘lame’ or ‘rubbish’. This is a widespread current usage of the word amongst young people.”
The committee, which consists of five BBC governors, including the former Royal Ballet dancer Deborah Bull, was “familiar with hearing this word in this context”.
Given Moyles’s target audience of young listeners “it was to be expected that he would use expressions and words which the listeners used themselves”.
The governors believed that, in describing a ringtone as gay, the DJ was conveying that he thought it was “rubbish” rather than “homosexual”. Moyles was not being homophobic, they said.
The panel acknowledged, however, that this use of the word “gay” in a derogatory sense could cause offence to some listeners and counselled caution on its use. Radio 1 was, however, correct to cancel future interviews with the American rap star Jayceon Taylor — known as The Game — after he called gay men “faggots” during a live interview. The presenter Jo Whiley showed “courage and presence of mind” by making an instant full apology, the panel ruled.
The governors also cleared The Catherine Tate Show over a complaint that an effeminate character in the sketch show was offensive. The humour derives from Derek Faye’s outraged reaction at the widespread assumption that he is gay. The complainant took offence that the viewers were invited to laugh at the character’s obvious gayness.
The committee said that the series was dominated by extreme, ridiculous characters who were “not meant to be taken literally or too seriously”. The BBC Two audience would not have found the sketches offensive.
However, BBC commentators should have apologised promptly to viewers after an outburst of swearing from Tim Henman during a Wimbledon match at teatime against the Russian Dmitry Tursunov.
The committee noted that, of four possible instances of offensive language during the match, two were impossible to decipher and may not have been swear words; one was a clear use of the “f” word, and the other a use of the word “arse”.
Given Henman’s previous good character, the committee agreed that there had been no reason to suppose beforehand that the British tennis player would have used any offensive language during a live broadcast.
A complainant had accused the BBC of a “serious disregard for broadcasting rules and regulations”, but the corporation’s committee said that viewers would not want pre-watershed sport to be subject to a time delay, despite the occasional risk of foul language.
HOW BRIGHT BECAME DULL
Believed to derive from Old French “gai”, the Latin “gaius” or a Germanic source. Originally meant “carefree”, “happy” or “bright and showy”
From late 17th century acquired sexual connotation of “uninhibited by moral constraints”
Gertrude Stein’s Miss Furr & Miss Skeene (1922) cited as first published reference to ambiguous sexuality
Noel Coward pens tribute to dandies of the “gay Nineties” wearing green carnations in 1929 musical Bitter Sweet
Used to describe foppish dress code, unattached men or bachelors until adopted by homosexuals themselves in 1960s
Originally used as an adjective (“he is gay”), the word is adopted as singular noun (“I am the only gay in the village”)
Children and students use gay as shorthand for “rubbish” during 1990s
Bloggers substitute “gay” for “boring” or “dull”, reversing original meaning
Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.
(\\__/) And if you don't believe The sun will rise
(='.'=) Stand alone and greet The coming night
(")_(") In the last remaining light. (C. Cornell)
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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It's annoying, but it's now English. "Wicked" still means awesome, and someone can be both "cool" and "hot". I do think "gay" may phase out more than those words, because people realise that the semantic history of "gay" is blatant teenage homophobia.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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This use of gay to mean rubbish is not so new. I've been retired for nine years and I can not only remember 'gay' being used to mean 'rubbish', but one particular boy who used it more than others in that sense.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Well, how gay is that?
The thing is, caring too passionately about it will just cause further resentment that we have "stolen the word"
As long as I am not "queer", which I hated, I am fine.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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>"Wicked" still means awesome
Awesome, of course, being yet another word that now has a different meaning. 
David
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Timmy said,
>The thing is, caring too passionately about it will just cause further resentment that we have "stolen the word"
Stolen the word?
If anything, they have "stolen the word" from us.
I would not object if there was not a clear link:
gay (happy/bright) -> gay (homosexual) -> gay (rubbish)
If it went straight from
gay (happy/bright) -> gay (rubbish)
then I would not object. In neither of the senses would "gay" have anything to do with us. However, I think most people who use it are aware that their use in a perjorative sense has got something to do with homosexuality, and if they continue to use it they are being lazy and childish (though not necessarily homophobic; at least, that is what they would claim).
On the other hand, "queer" doesn't have any perjorative meaning as far as I'm concerned, because no-one (or practically no-one) uses it in that sense any more; those that do are those people who have reclaimed it. Just another difference between the social environment then and the environment now, I suppose, Timmy.
David
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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The Gay Liberation Front "stole" the word gay from common parlance in the 1960s. Prior to that time it had been a word denoting happiness, frivolity and fun.
After the GLF adopted the word, the moral majority chose to get all upset. They no longer had a pejorative word to use. "Those queers!" has a very different effect from "Those gays".
My mother was upset that she could not say "gay" any more without people sniggering.
I prefer "gay" to almost any other description of what I am. "Nancy Boy", "Queer", "Fag", "Poof", "Homo" all sound nasty to me.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Use of the word gay like this is liable to cause offence - I don't think the Governors should condone it.
After all, it is quite common for men of my age to affectionately tell a friend to stop being a "silly sod" (acceptable) or a "daft cunt" (definitely not acceptable ever on the BBC, and increasingly unaceptable elsewhere - including on this forum, probably.)
Just because a word is common in a particular context does not legitimise use where widespread offence will be caused.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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surely the use of the word gay in relation to something thats bad is a clear reference to the fact that gay people are rubbish or bad... or other things negative... just because the slang is common on the streets doesn't mean its not homophobic
one of my flat mates, when i first met him used gay like that all the time... and for the first couple of weeks i knew himhe'd consistantly say it, and then apologise to me, realising what he said... i got more fed up with his apologising tbh, and told him i didn't mind and that it didn't bother me... because i knew, coming from him, it wasn't meant to be offensive...
he stopped using it completely all by himself... can't recall when and why though... when we actually moved in together he just wasn't using it, must have not been cool to say it when he went back home over the summer lol...
Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, set fieri sentio et excrucior
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Timmy,
I agree that "gay" has changed its meaning, and that it was an engineered change. It might have been better if they had simply made up a word. However, I don't think that makes it appropriate to engineer, by laziness or malice, another change to the meaning, just because it has already happened -- especially when that change uses the association with homosexuality to generate its meaning.
"Nancy boy", "fag", "poof" and "homo" do sound like terms of abuse to me, because I've heard them used in that way. However, the only time you hear "queer" used these days (in the gay sense) is by gay people who have reclaimed the word. There's also nothing about the word's original meaning (odd) that is unpleasant. I'm happy to be thought of as a bit queer, as in odd or eccentric.
Come to think of it, as far as I'm concerned, a fag is an outdated public-school concept, and a faggot is a bunch of sticks. So I don't react strongly to those words. It's presumably different for Americans, and possibly older British people (has it ever been used commonly on this side of the pond?), who are more inclined to use those words to refer to gay people.
David
P.S.
>I prefer "gay" to almost any other description of what I am. "Nancy Boy", "Queer", "Fag", "Poof", "Homo" all sound nasty to me.
I very much dislike "a gay" ("I'm the only gay in the village") as it gives the impression that the defining characteristic of myself as a person is that I am homosexual, on the order of "a human being" or "a man" (or "a pedant" ).
Gay is just about okay, though it's another label. Why can't I just say I'm attracted to the male sex? It's just about the only thing I can say for sure is true. Whereas saying I'm gay could lead people to assume several things, some completely wrong (like that I'm never attracted to women, that I'm not interested in having a family, that I'm camp, et cetera, et cetera).
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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The reaction of the complainant reminds me of the days when the Daily Mail published letters from 'Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells' about the mere mention of sex on radio.
BBC Radio 1 is directed at listeners under 30 who wish to listen to current popular music. Chris Moyles was addressing that audience - he's actually intelligent and humorous within those terms of reference - and he was simply using the colloquial language of those to whom he was speaking.
We may not like the current usage of the word, but - except in individual cases like that described by Black Prince - we are absolutely powerless to prevent it, and the complainant achieved nothing whatsoever.
For the record - language development being something of an obsessive interest of mine! - I think that the new usage is technically homophobic, though not maliciously so. We've just got to learn to live with it - arguing against it will achieve nothing other than a derisive response.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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