When did the word gay originate?
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Gay\nMuch commentary about this adjective referring to homosexuals exists, mostly having to do with usage. Our concern here, however, is etymology and two mistaken notions prevail. The first is that gay, meaning homosexual, originated as an acronym for Good As You. The second is that it is of relatively recent origin, dating only to the late 1960s. Both of these ideas are in error.\n\nMany, believe that gay came to mean homosexual only in the late 1960s with the Stonewall riot and the rise of the gay rights movement. This is not the case. The error these people are making is confusing the adoption of the term by the heterosexual community, and thus the English language as a whole, with its origin. The term is in fact much older, being used by homosexuals to refer to themselves with certainty as early as the 1920s, and possibly as early as the 1860s.\n\nLighter gives the earliest usage cite as a 1922 quote from Gertrude Stein's "Miss Furr & Mrs. Skeene" which appeared in Vanity Fair. It is uncertain, however, if Stein's use of gay in this case is a reference to lesbianism or to the [then] conventional sense of gay meaning happy:\n\nThey were ... gay, they learned little things that are things in being gay, ... they were quite regularly gay.\nThe first unequivocal written use of gay to mean homosexual is in 1929, in Noel Coward's musical Bittersweet. In the song Green Carnation, four overdressed, 1890s dandies sing:\n\nPretty boys, witty boys, You may sneer\nAt our disintegration.\nHaughty boys, naughty boys,\nDear, dear, dear!\nSwooning with affectation...\nAnd as we are the reason\nFor the "Nineties" being gay,\nWe all wear a green carnation.\n\nThe penultimate line refers to the 1890s, which were commonly called the gay nineties. In general usage, this appellation had nothing to do with homosexuality, but in this context, Coward clearly uses it as a double entendre. \n\nGay appears again in 1933 in Ford and Tyler's Young & Evil. In 1938 in the movie Bringing Up Baby, the character played by Cary Grant, when asked why he is wearing women's clothing replies, "Because I just went gay all of a sudden." In retrospect, this is obviously a joke intended to slip past the censors. In their 1941 book Sexual Variations, Gershon Legman and G.V. Henry cite gay as a slang term for homosexual, which indicates that it was in use for some time prior.\n\nLighter also indirectly cites an 1868 song by female impersonator Will S. Hays titled, Gay Young Clerk in the Dry Goods Store. The lyrics do not explicitly link the word with homosexuality, but they can be interpreted that way, especially if sung by a man in drag. Then again, that may be reading too much into the lyrics. You be the judge:\n\nIt's about a chap, perhaps you know,\nI'm told he is 'Nobody's beau,'\nBut maybe you all knew that before,\nHe's a lively clerk in a Dry-Goods Store.\nO! Augustus Dolphus is his name,\nFrom Skiddy-ma-dink they say he came,\nHe's a handsome man and he's proud and poor,\nThis gay young clerk in the Dry-Goods Store.\nOK, so gay was definitely in use in the 1920s, and perhaps earlier, but how did the term come to be associated with homosexuals? Several possibilities exist, but the acronym for Good As You is not one of them. \nThe most likely explanation is that it derives from gaycat or geycat, a slang term for a tramp or hobo who is new to the road. Gaycats were commonly in the company of older tramps, implying a homosexual relationship. The term, according to Lighter, dates to at least the 1890s. Gaycats were employed as lookouts while other hoboes committed crimes. The OED2 cites the 1935 Underworld & Prison Slang by N. Ersine as defining geycat as a homosexual boy. The origin of gaycat is unknown. Green, however, says a gay cat was a tramp who offered sexual services to women.\n\nAnother possible origin is the late nineteenth century slang usage of gay to mean promiscuous. A
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It was called the Battle of Big Gay Al.\n\nSome fabulous gays fought so less fabulous gay dudes and today we celebrate it at Southern Decadence!
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in ancient Greece\nAlexander was gay\nalso in Sodom
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Origins of the word JEWEL\n\nc.1290, "article of value used for adornment," Anglo-Fr. juel, O.Fr. juel, jouel "ornament, jewel" (12c.), perhaps from M.L. jocale, from L. jocus "pastime, sport," in V.L. "that which causes joy" (see joke). Another theory traces it to L. gaudium, also with a notion of "rejoice." Sense of "precious stone" developed early 14c.
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Etymology\nPossibly from Latin gaudium, "joy". The word is known to have been adopted through the French gai in 12th century. Other Romance languages had a sense of "slack", "not closely fitting", but its etymological importance is not understood. It is unclear where the word originally came from. Some, such as Friedrich Christian Diez, suggested that it comes from Middle High German. The sense of "homosexual" is said to have come from an Arabic word via French; it is also said to come from the word's older sense of "dissolute".\n\nAdjective\n\nhappy, joyful, and lively \nIt's a wonderfully gay morning. \n\nfestive, bright, colourful \nDon we now our gay apparel \nPennsylvania Dutch include the plain folk and the gay folk. \n\nhomosexual \ntypical of homosexual appearance or behaviour (often in a stereotypical sense) \nThat tight leathing clothing looks a bit gay. \n\n(pejorative - slang) boring, unappealing, bad, of low quality, annoying, unfair \nThis game is gay. Let's play something else. \n\nNoun\na homosexual, most often a male homosexual but sometimes applied to female homosexuals, who are also called lesbians.
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Well English...Started from Anglo-Saxon.Some words are borrowd or adopted. Some were created by accident.
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in the early 1960s, the homosexual subculture started using the word to describe themselves.  The term "homosexual" was too "clinical" (it was in the DSM III as a "mental disorder") and queer was too derogatory, so the word gay (happy) was coined.  By about 1963, mainstream america had started to adopt it too (hetrosexual america I mean...)\n\n"waterhead" is an appropos name for the idiot that posted first.  Must have nothing but water in his head.
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Isn't it a new way of referring to gay males every since Brokeback Mountain?
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Back when it was novel back in the 70s, the right ear meant you were gay.  That lasted about one month.  There isn't a gay ear.  The girl is just acting out and thats the best she could come up with.
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Theoretically, you're absolutely right. The thing is, the word "homophobia" is a modern word of recent coinage. The "homo-" in "homophobia" isn't short for "homos" (Greek for "one-in-the-same"), it's short for "homosexual." Language is elastic that way.\n\n"Antihomosexual" might be preferable if "homophobic" hadn't become standard usage. Now, it would seem pedantic to try to change the standard. Words mean what people understand them to mean, that's all. If it were seriously confusing to use "homophobic," people would just stop using it.\n\nIn early Middle English, "uncle" was spelled "nuncle." Just because we lost the first "n" doesn't mean that the language was "bastardized." English is a hodge-podge of hundreds of languages. I'm an English teacher, but I understand that words change, and that there's no hard-and-fast proscriptive lexicon that won't be obsolete the moment it's published. The word "understand" doesn't mean to stand under anything. What's the point of expecting rules that never applied suddenly to apply now?
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there are two supposed origins - \n1. is from the word nut, meaning hard seed, which is called "hnutu" in Old English or "*khnut" in Proto-Germanic\n\n2. from earlier be nutts upon "be very fond of" (1785), which is possibly from nuts (noun, plural) "any source of pleasure" (1617), from nut (described above). Sense influenced probably by metaphoric application of nut to "head" (1846, e.g. to be off one's nut "be insane," 1860). Nut "crazy person, crank" is attested from 1903, (British form nutter first attested 1958).
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I suggest you read "Queer Theory" by Annamarie Jagose and "History of Sexuality" by Michel Foucault.\n\nAccording to Jagose, the word "gay" became mainstream in the mid 20th century. Wikipedia reports that it is documented as being used for same-gender sex as early as the 1920s. However, according to Wikipedia as well, the word first became associated with sexual connotations as early at the 17th century:\n\n"The word started to acquire sexual connotations in the late 17th century, being used with meaning "addicted to pleasures and dissipations". This was by extension from the primary meaning of "carefree": implying "uninhibited by moral constraints". By the late nineteenth century the term "gay life" was a well-established euphemism for prostitution and other forms of extramarital sexual behaviour that were perceived as immoral."\n\nAs for f-ag, it comes primarily from prostitution. I think this is especially interesting (Wiki): \n\n"A f-ag (personal servant) was a junior boy who acted as servant to a senior boy at a British independent school."\n\nNow, I thought I would also bring up that I actually hate the word Homosexual. It was invented in 1869 primarily for the purpose of pathologizing same-sex relations. Homosexual is supposed to be some kind of politically correct term these days, but I find it far more insulting than, say, Queer, because it's seens as the "opposite" of heterosexual. I also suggest you read "The Trouble with Normal" by Michael Warner fore more information.\n\nSo I leave you with this qupte below. Please contact me if you want to discuss this further. I love Queer Theory!\n\n"To me, queer is the radical potential to choose one's gender and one's sexual and social identities, to embrace a radical outsider's perspective, to create culture on our terms and to challenge everything that's sickening about the dominant culture around us" \n--Matt Bernstein Sycamore
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The first recorded use of OK was in the spring of 1839 by the Boston Morning Post:\n\n(23 March) He of the Journal...would have the 'contribution box,' et ceteras, o.k.--all correct--and cause the corks to fly, like sparks, upward.\n\n(26 March) Had the pleasure of taking these 'interesting strangers' by the hand, and wishing them a speedy passage to the Commercial Emporium, They were o.k.\n\n(10 April) It is hardly necessary to say to those who know Mr. Hughes, that his establishment will be found to be 'A. No. One'--that is, O.K.--all correct.\n\nBy July of that year, the term spread south to New York, and quickly gained wide acceptance:\n\n(27 July, Evening Tattler) These 'wise men from the East'...are right...to play at bowls with us as long as we are willing to set ourselves up, like skittles, to be knocked down for their amusement and emolument. OK! all correct!\nThe next year, 1840, New York Democrats formed an organization called the OK Club. The name of the club stood for Old Kinderhook as Martin Van Buren was running for reelection that year. Since the term was in use prior to the formation of the OK Club, it seems likely that the name of the club was due in part due to the phrase, not vice versa. The activities of the OK Club, however, undoubtedly contributed to the popularity of OK even if not providing the origin.\n\nThe variant A-OK first appeared during NASA's Mercury program of the 1960s. It may be a combination of A-One with OK. Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff, however, claims that it was originally used by Shorty Powers, the "Voice of Mercury Control," in radio transmissions because the "A" sound cut through static better than the "O".\n\n(Sources: Allen Walker Read's American Speech articles; Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition; NASA Lunar Surface Journal)
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because it is unnatural , and you can't say it has been around as long as heterosexuality, if you read the history you will find that it came around when the sexual cantact between men and women was restricted by religion. If people like you don't encurage it and it was punishable by law, there would be no more gay people around.
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During the 'brown period' (betweeen 11 BC and 9 BC), caves were filled with shit and puke. Man tried everything including cooking, which cured the shits for good. BTW, that was also the origin of the word "BINGO!"
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actually its not the stick gatherer, its the bundle of sticks. In the bible gay people are also refered to as firebrands, the bundle of sticks reference became popular when gays were burned together with witches. I'm told they burned up quite well and thereafter  were refered to as faggots
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The term you're thinking about it 'goolies'. I really don't know where it comes from, but it refers to the testes, rather than the penis