Re: query: distorted languages?

Leo Caesius wrote:
> Padraic responded:
Actually, that was my response.

>     My first exposure to "the word" came from watching the American cartoon
> series "The Flintstones," as it occurs in the theme song: "Have a yabba,
> dabba, doo time/ A dabba doo time/ We'll have a gay, old time!"  I'm not
> sure what it all means, although Barney and Fred were awfully chummy at
> times...
It simply meant "happy", the original meaning.

>         In Eric Partridge's _A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English_, he
> notes that "the word was first published in the O.E.D. in 1825 but was in
> circulation well before that date.
Actually, it was in the OED in the 17th century, where a secondary
meaning was listed "living a loose or immoral life", i.e., promiscuous.

>         Another possible origin is the late nineteenth century slang usage of gay
> to mean promiscuous. A gay house meant a brothel. This sexual sense of the
> term could have become associated with homosexuals and the heterosexual
> sense lost."
That seems pretty weak to me.

> Lately, a similar
> shift seems to be occuring to the word "partner" (in the Kevin Smith film
> "Dogma," Ben Affleck tells Linda Fiorentino that he and Matt Damon are
> "partners" and she automatically assumes that the two of them are gay).
Well, I don't think that was because she thought "partner = homosexual
relationship", but an in-joke related to rumors about the two being gay.

> The word shifted in meaning from "a member of any group engaged in some sort of
> joint enterprise (be it sports, business, dancing, etc.)" to "an individual
> officially registered in a "domestic partnership" with another individual,
> often of the same sex" to "significant other in a (usually monogamous)
> same-sex relationship."
I haven't seen that yet.  It may happen in the near-future, but I don't
think that it's happened yet.

--
"Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and
I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor