Cato's Grammar Grumble

Started by Cato, February 08, 2009, 05:00:18 PM

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Ken B

This seems like the right thread for this. May you kern in hell! ... https://hellveticafont.com/

zamyrabyrd

Quote from: mc ukrneal on October 31, 2019, 06:40:16 PM
Queer is offensive. It is not simply a synonym for gay or homosexual. A little research would tell you this.

It used to be a synonym for "odd", so not intrinsically bad.
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."

― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

mc ukrneal

Quote from: zamyrabyrd on November 02, 2019, 04:05:57 AM
It used to be a synonym for "odd", so not intrinsically bad.
It's true that there are other meanings, most of which are historical at this point in the US. I've seen that particular usage more in the UK, but I cannot say if it still used at all or mostly been abandoned there. Context also plays a role.
Be kind to your fellow posters!!

Karl Henning

Quote from: zamyrabyrd on November 02, 2019, 04:05:57 AM
It used to be a synonym for "odd", so not intrinsically bad.

Hello, zb! How are you doing?
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Mandryka

#4624
Quote from: mc ukrneal on November 02, 2019, 05:51:22 AM
It's true that there are other meanings, most of which are historical at this point in the US. I've seen that particular usage more in the UK, but I cannot say if it still used at all or mostly been abandoned there. Context also plays a role.

Did you not get the British TV series Queer as Folk in the states? I always assumed because of your monika that you were in the UK.

https://youtube.com/v/l5tQ8wBQKX8&feature=youtube

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Jo498

I only know the title of that series but by this alone I'd have thought that it was not an offensive term although by now less common (more regional?) than gay.
And of course the double meaning often only works with queer. Partly because the non-sexual meaning of gay all but disappeared in the last half century or so.
One did not really learn such things in English class in 1980s German school (although we had one teacher who frequently hinted about words one should know/recognize but never use, the four letter ones) but I am pretty sure I knew the common (sexual) meaning of gay before I went to the US in my twenties for a year of studies in the mid-1990s. I certainly did not know the meaning of queer before that time because I distinctly remember when someone used it and he had to explain it to me (and also used the phrase "queer as a three dollar bill" which I still find funny, admittedly).
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Mandryka

#4626
Quote from: Jo498 on November 02, 2019, 10:03:40 AM
I only know the title of that series but by this alone I'd have thought that it was not an offensive term although by now less common (more regional?) than gay.
And of course the double meaning often only works with queer. Partly because the non-sexual meaning of gay all but disappeared in the last half century or so.
One did not really learn such things in English class in 1980s German school (although we had one teacher who frequently hinted about words one should know/recognize but never use, the four letter ones) but I am pretty sure I knew the common (sexual) meaning of gay before I went to the US in my twenties for a year of studies in the mid-1990s. I certainly did not know the meaning of queer before that time because I distinctly remember when someone used it and he had to explain it to me (and also used the phrase "queer as a three dollar bill" which I still find funny, admittedly).

Bent as a nine bob note was the UK expression, at the time there was a ten bob note

.

Bent means stolen or criminal or dishonest, bent goods = stolen goods, a bent lawyer = a dishonest lawyer. It can also mean homosexual (vide. the related (I think still very offensive) term for a gay man a bender.)

Queer as folk is a pun, obviously, on the expression queer as fuck.. As fuck in this context is just an intensifier -- queer as fuck just means very very queer, though clearly fuck still keeps a connotation of sex, which makes the expression fun.  There was a very common northern English expression, I've heard it very often -- there's nowt so queer as folk -- nowt a Northern dialect word for nothing.


Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

JBS

Quote from: Mandryka on November 02, 2019, 09:10:44 AM
Did you not get the British TV series Queer as Folk in the states? I always assumed because of your monika that you were in the UK.

https://youtube.com/v/l5tQ8wBQKX8&feature=youtube

There was a North American version that ran five seasons starting in 2000.
And we in the US had Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Was there a UK version of that?

As for the Q word itself, it's been possibly a couple of decades since I heard it used as anything other than a self-affirmation by a gay person or a neutral decriptive term. My community has a somewhat above average percentage of gays, so perhaps that has something to with it.  It's been a number of years since I have heard the term "faggot" used as an insult by anyone older than 17 (and not often used by anyone else in any context), and even longer since I have heard anyone use the term "fairy" in any manner related to gays.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

zamyrabyrd

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on November 02, 2019, 08:25:16 AM
Hello, zb! How are you doing?

Thanks for asking. My husband has a hospital appointment today. It won't be much fun for anyone.
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."

― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Karl Henning

Quote from: zamyrabyrd on November 02, 2019, 08:26:05 PM
Thanks for asking. My husband has a hospital appointment today. It won't be much fun for anyone.

Good luck!
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

mc ukrneal

Quote from: zamyrabyrd on November 02, 2019, 08:26:05 PM
Thanks for asking. My husband has a hospital appointment today. It won't be much fun for anyone.
Sorry to hear that. Hope it goes as well as it can...
Be kind to your fellow posters!!

Ken B

Quote from: zamyrabyrd on November 02, 2019, 08:26:05 PM
Thanks for asking. My husband has a hospital appointment today. It won't be much fun for anyone.
Good luck to him, and to you.

Cato

Best Wishes to Zamyrabyrd and her family!

Time has been at a premium these past months, so I have not always had a chance to grumble here!   ;)

"Queer duck" is an expression which always seemed rather British to me: I cannot find much about it (at the moment) on the Internet, but do recall it being used in 19th-century writing, both British and American.   It also seems that I recall it from a Humphrey Bogart movie, but cannot find a reference.

A person from England recently wrote to me about the phrase "wagging the head," which the writer found very odd, because the writer thought (perhaps was taught) that it could only be used for tails.  Heads can be shaken and nodded, but not "wagged."

However, it seems authors have had no problem with the phrase: I recall it being used by Alma Mahler in the ( Basil Creighton ) translation of her Mahler memories to describe Schoenberg at the chaos connected with a performance of his op. 7.

I always heard it during Good Friday services or in late Lenten Masses, for it is used in a description of the Crucifixion, as Jewish leaders pass by the cross and are described as "wagging their heads" in disgust or in an "I-Told-You-So" fashion:

From an updated King James Version:

Quote

Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left. (39)  And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, (40) And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself.


https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-27-39/


My American Heritage Dictionary also has no problem with the phrase, the "wagging" showing disappointment, disgust, or embarrassment.

What say ye? 
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

AlberichUndHagen

Quote from: Cato on November 03, 2019, 06:45:27 AM
It also seems that I recall it from a Humphrey Bogart movie, but cannot find a reference.

I recall that they said "queer-looking duck" in Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons, also.

Mandryka

I remember once when I was a graduate student and about to change supervisors, someone said to me "He is very good but a queer fish."

The man in question is now quite a major professor of philosophy!
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

zamyrabyrd

Quote from: Cato on November 03, 2019, 06:45:27 AM
Best Wishes to Zamyrabyrd and her family!

Thanks, guys for your concern. It really means a lot. Suffice to say that if any of you are heavy smokers, please STOP NOW. He was warned, which makes everything worse...
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."

― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Cato

Quote from: AlberichUndHagen on November 03, 2019, 07:20:07 AM
I recall that they said "queer-looking duck" in Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons, also.

Yes!  Good memory!  It seems that it was a phrase about eccentricity in general.

Quote from: Mandryka on November 03, 2019, 07:30:06 AM
I remember once when I was a graduate student and about to change supervisors, someone said to me "He is very good but a queer fish."

The man in question is now quite a major professor of philosophy!

Yes, I have also heard that animal used.

Quote from: zamyrabyrd on November 03, 2019, 07:32:18 AM
Thanks, guys for your concern. It really means a lot. Suffice to say that if any of you are heavy smokers, please STOP NOW. He was warned, which makes everything worse...

Well, it is sad.   One of the most addictive substances is readily available everywhere.  I was amazed, when I first visited (West) Germany 45 years ago, to see cancer-stick machines on somebody's fence in the middle of a residential neighborhood, often by a school-bus stop!   ???   The German cancer-stick companies knew how to find new customers!

I never ever was tempted to try it, since from earliest childhood I HATED the stink, the coating from the smoke on the windows, the rotting-Brussels-sprouts breath, the debris on the streets and even on the floors of buildings, I HATED the entire tobacco-kulcher.   My grandfathers died before age 68 from chewing (maternal side) and smoking (paternal).  My grandmother (paternal) also died before age 68.  On the other hand, my weed-free grandmother lived to be 90.  My parents had a miserable last decade when they were sick from smoking diseases.

Yes, I still hate it, along with marijuana, cloves, and anything else similar: lungs were designed for air, and weeds were designed to be pulled and mulched, not chewed, not inhaled.
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

AlberichUndHagen

Quote from: Cato on November 03, 2019, 07:47:22 AM
Yes!  Good memory!  It seems that it was a phrase about eccentricity in general.

Thanks! Although one of the reasons for my remembering it is that the phrase was repeated several times.  :D

@zamyrabyrd: I wish strength to you and your family!


JBS


Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

zamyrabyrd

Quote from: JBS on November 03, 2019, 04:43:58 PM
Amen to all of that.

Thanks, all! I have been a basket case from yesterday but with still plenty more to go.
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."

― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds