how and when did the meaning of "gay" and "queer" change to "homosexual"?

Question

please no homophobic or rude answers. i'm wondering because i don't see how their original meaning would lend themselves to switching over to "homosexual." if you can cite sources, that would be excellent.

Answer 1

gay

1178, "full of joy or mirth," from O.Fr. gai "gay, merry," perhaps from Frank. *gahi (cf. O.H.G. wahi "pretty"). Meaning "brilliant, showy" is from c.1300. OED gives 1951 as earliest date for slang meaning "homosexual" (adj.), but this is certainly too late; gey cat "homosexual boy" is attested in N. Erskine's 1933 dictionary of "Underworld & Prison Slang;" the term gey cat (gey is a Scot. variant of gay) was used as far back as 1893 in Amer.Eng. for "young hobo," one who is new on the road and usually in the company of an older tramp, with catamite connotations. But Josiah Flynt ["Tramping With Tramps," 1905] defines gay cat as, "An amateur tramp who works when his begging courage fails him." Gey cats also were said to be tramps who offered sexual services to women. The "Dictionary of American Slang" reports that gay (adj.) was used by homosexuals, among themselves, in this sense since at least 1920. Rawson ["Wicked Words"] notes a male prostitute using gay in reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostitutes) in London's notorious Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889. Ayto ["20th Century Words"] calls attention to the ambiguous use of the word in the 1868 song "The Gay Young Clerk in the Dry Goods Store," by U.S. female impersonator Will S. Hays. The word gay in the 1890s had an overall tinge of promiscuity -- a gay house was a brothel. The suggestion of immorality in the word can be traced back to 1637. Gay as a noun meaning "a (usually male) homosexual" is attested from 1971.

queer

1508, "strange, peculiar, eccentric," from Scottish, perhaps from Low Ger. (Brunswick dialect) queer "oblique, off-center," related to Ger. quer "oblique, perverse, odd," from O.H.G. twerh "oblique," from PIE base *twerk- "to turn, twist, wind" (related to thwart). The verb "to spoil, ruin" is first recorded 1812. Sense of "homosexual" first recorded 1922; the noun in this sense is 1935, from the adj.

Answer 2

The definition didn't change. You're just trying to make a point that doesn't exist in an misguided attempt to try and smear adoption. For the record, here is the definition. You will see, unlike you, Alexander actually could use the word, orphan as he intends. or·phan (ôrfn) n. 1. a. A child whose parents are dead. b. A child who has been deprived of parental care and has not been adopted. 2. A young animal without a mother. 3. One that lacks support, supervision, or care: A lack of corporate interest has made the subsidiary an orphan. 4. An orphan technology or product. 5. a. A line of type beginning a new paragraph at the bottom of a column or page. b. A short line of type at the bottom of a paragraph, column, or page; a widow. adj. 1. Deprived of parents. 2. Intended for orphans: an orphan home. 3. Lacking support, supervision, or care. 4. Not developed or marketed, especially on account of being commercially unprofitable: "an aggregation of every orphan technology at the Pentagon, stuff that's been around for years that nobody would buy" (Harper's). tr.v. or·phaned, or·phan·ing, or·phans To deprive (a child or young animal) of a parent or parents. @ Sunny, you just had to try and get in that dig at AP and PAPs even though the question and Alexander's question had nothing to do with PAPS. You are way too predictable!

Answer 3

Gore Vidal gave an explanation of its origins on a television talk show about 15 years ago and said that in the early eighteenth century, "gay" was a slang word for a female prostitute. Later, the meaning changed and it came to mean a male homosexual. This is the explanation I've always accepted.

Of course, "gay" according to some people, is a nuanced word and doesn't mean just any male homosexual but a sort of middle-class assimilated homosexual. I tend to agree with that too. Unfortunately, people have a tendancy to overlook nuances in a lot of words and want to boil everything down to one meaning.

Answer 4

The Meaning Of Gay

Answer 5

Actually Gay became synonymous with homosexuality in the early seventies. Until then it was either queer or homosexual. Then the homosexual lifestyle was almost all in the closet. I came off the Antarctic continent in October 1973 and Gay was being used as a reference to a homosexual lifestyle.

Answer 6

A web site about the relative popularity of different forenames given to children is revealing.

"Gay" as a girl's name suddenly became popular in the 1930s and remained about equally popular through the 1940s and 1950s. However, its popularity halved in the 1960s, and is negligible afterwards.

So it seems that around 1965, give or take a year, people stopped calling their female children "Gay", and it would be reasonable to suppose that they stopped because they were becoming aware of its new meaning.

Answer 7

I'm not exactly sure, but it is a word who's colloquial meaning has come full circle.

Gay used to mean queer, as in strange. Or it could mean happy.

Gay then came to mean homosexual.

Gay has then come back around to mean strange or queer. As in, "Dude, the teacher gave us homework. That's gay!"

I just find it strange. Pretty gay.

Answer 8

It all means the same thing, the word gay may mean happy and full of joy, or it can also refer to a homosexual person,
these links should give this answer a best answwer,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexuality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi_Community_News
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexual_erasure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrate_Bisexuality_Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biphobiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_historyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_religion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_religion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_queen

Answer 9

because people in this world are small minded and have nothing else to do but change meanings of words to make people feel horrible.

Answer 10

Uh, it was the other way around.