How queer is this expression?
Yesterday I was watching a movie (don't recall the name) and one of the characters tells another, in a heavy british accent: "I say, you can't accuse me of faggotry"
I rather liked the way he pronounced it, like it was something aristocratic.
Don't worry, I know what the word means, but still think it has a ring to it.
Is it oldfashioned? Is it okay to use it in everyday use?
We Brits call our ciggies, fags. Americans find this very funny. We use Faggot for the meaning in the film still, it is frowned upon. Also use Faggot as meaning a load of twigs tied together to burn on a fire. Not used by many though.
Or in private schools the older lads have young lads called "fags" who run about for them doing jobs like getting cups of tea, or what ever. I was very suprised by this my self when a load of private school lads came to play rugby against my school's team (comprihensive or state school). My mate pointed out these poor little beggers running about with water for the older toffs. Nowt as queer as folk as my nan says.
By the way we beat "Queen Ethelburger's School" after only one days practice, when the other team were supposed to be near proffesional!..... Im sure it was down to me and my mate shouting support from the touchline ;)
Faggot is a traditional welsh meat dish.
I thought the whole nasty business of calling homosexuals "faggots" started in the witchhunts, when obviously effeminate men were usually suspected of being uncanny or supernaturally possessed, and tossed on the fires with the witches. Anyway, that's why I find it as a particularly unpleasant term.
L'étymon <faggot> provient de l'ancien français <fagot>.
Faggots sound yuk to me! Thank God we don't have them in Scotland.
<<Dictionary.com implies that both the British and American meanings probably have their origin in the original English word "faggot" meaning a "bundle of twigs or sticks." Through semantic drift the word eventually came to mean 'bundle', then 'lump', then 'old woman' and finally 'homosexual' in American English. >>
Yes, I've heard this explanation. It started as a derogatory term for an old woman (much like, "bag" as in "you old bag!") and then eventually came to apply to gay men. It may also have been reinforced, in the USA especially, by the Yiddish "faygele", literally meaning "little bird", but a derogatory term for a homosexual man.
>We Brits call our ciggies, fags.
Not just the UK. Even with the efforts of the anti-smoking lobby you are still allowed to light a fag anywhere except North America.
***you are still allowed to light a fag anywhere except North America***
Not in Scotland you can't...unless you are standing out in the open air somewhere....which is why you find sad smoking addicts standing outside their workplaces in the wind and rain or snow. The same applies in Ireland as well, and in England and Wales from next year.
I know that, Damien, but it's not actually considered murder, even if modern wishy-washy penalties for capital crimes are not much greater than those for having a cig in the wrong place. Sorry for the bad Billy Connolly joke, which I realise was unrecognisable without the obscenities.
Their going to have to build a new layby on the A1 just before the border for commercial drivers to have their last draw. Even if you are on your own in your lorry, you can't smoke in it in Scotland, so you'll see lorry drivers start to chain smoke just as they get past Newcastle!! And from 2007 us poor English will go the same way, were all going to have to move to Wales if we want to smoke with our pint.
What do raving faggots taste like anyway? Looks like something queer you'd feed to your dog.
***They're***, sorry I cant spell.
***What do raving faggots taste like anyway? Looks like something queer you'd feed to your dog***
For that extra queeny touch you can roll them up in poof pastry.