Vocabulary has always been a ripple in the tide of human evolution and change. This change has become more visible in last few decades with the insurgence of the internet, text messages and growing high tech world. There are two types of new or revisited vocabulary, slang and innovation. I want to focus today’s effort on the word “gay”. The word itself has been a part of our vocabulary for hundreds of years, but only in recent times has its meaning been revised and the word becomes utilized as slang.
The meaning of Gay in its earliest form meant something very different to today’s version. Gay use to mean something happy and carefree, what I imagine the 1970s to have been like with the introduction of “hippies”. Actually to compare the 70’s hippie-esque ideals to the word “gay” maybe more correct than not. Consider the basic idea of hippie life: to be carefree and peaceful. As the years went by, these flower children took the idea of being peaceful and carefree to meaning no boundaries, drug daze, and irresponsibility. In comparison, the word “gay” use to be a peaceful and happy word, but throughout the last few decades the word has become something quite different. The word Gay has now changed from the simple idea of happy and free to the definition of homosexuality. Not only does it represent homosexuality but often people use this term in a negative fashion to denigrate both homosexuals and those that the word is used towards.
There are three types of people out there when it comes to the useage of the word “gay”. Those who are comfortable with people who are homosexuals or homosexuals themselves utilize the word to promote their choices and the word is not utilized in a negative sense, but as a common place identity marker, the same as Asian, short, Latino, and women. It becomes a truth and those who utilize it take full responsibility of its meanings. The second group of people are those who try to be like group one by assimilating, but are extremely uncomfortable with the word ‘gay’ and the idea of homosexuality. These people will try to act as similar to the first group as possible because of our inherent need to assimilate and in today’s world be politically correct, but does not truly agree with the context of being gay. The third type is a person who uses the word as a negative slang to mean someone who is unmanly and weak.
Denigrating people by calling them the name of one characteristic has always been prominent towards all types/groups of people.
I have more to go… but I’m going to end it here for right now.
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