But fag means cigarette!

[blas87]

I'm guilty of "retarded". I can't break that habbit, but I really don't care to, either.

[DrFaroohk]

I'm with you on retarded, too. All these speshul snowflake groups want to own these words. Screw off! I can use them when I feel like it, and I'm not talking about homosexuals or people with mental handicaps.

Someday I feel like there's going to be a real serious situation happening, like a burning building, and someone's gonna be like "Fuckin retarded fire! Let's get out!" and the idiots will be left behind bitching about how that's a bad word to say, and they'll burn to death.....and the world will be a better place. I suppose that's not so bad.

You don't get to decide what words mean. The English language, the dictionary, and context get to decide that. If you disagree, tough shit

The dictionaries I always had listed things like Bitch, Ass, Fag, Gay, etc...as their original intended definitions. So...unless you're saying that words and meanings can change? Then they can change from bad too.

Or we can debate about what I meant! Let's see...you believe, when I said Fag, I meant "a homosexual person". I believe that when I say fag, I mean something in general negative. Nothing to do with homosexuals. Let's see....how about we call our expert witnesses? As the foremost authority on what I am thinking, I declare I am not referring to homosexuals. Can you top that? Didn't think so. Better luck tomorrow.

Further Edit: I frequently use the N word when talking to my friends. No matter how much you squeeze your little hands and stomp your little feet, when I say "Wassup nigga?" to my friends, I am never going to mean "Hello my friend! Down with the black man!"

[Lace Neil Singer]

Over here we don't use Fag in that way, oh trust me we have many a word to substitute, but I can not see any UK teenagers on XBLive calling people a packet of cig's, I think I would be calling someone a 'right combine harvester' long before I call em a packet of cigs.

XD Of course, if I say I'm going out to smoke a fag, I do not mean I'm burning homosexuals.

[Ginger Tea]

Or mean it as an euphimism for male on male oral sex.

I think the term is hominym (sp) and I only know this due to a robot chicken sketch, in the UK we have a get out clause being it's a cigerette, over in the States and Canada I have no idea if it has ever been used as a well known general slag for cigs, or if the "but it means cig's" excuse should read "But it means Cig's in England." Still your what, calling something an English Cigarette?

As far as the American term goes, I've only ever had it mean 'Gay' I think it's short for Fagalite (sp) but I am not 100% sure and have not looked this info up, all I know that the Billy Christal TV show Soap had him as a gay man and he was going to undergo a sex change and his hospital bed mate at the time an old guy (hell could have been George Burns or whatever his last name was, cigar smoking comic who was fin old when I was young let alone when he died) anyhoos, he said something along the lines of
"First Fagailte I meet and he's having it chopped off."

Then again that was the first and only time I've heard the word "in full", it's not short for Faggot which again is and is not a derogitory term, it's some bleh looking meat ball.

[Nekojin]

Or we can debate about what I meant! Let's see...you believe, when I said Fag, I meant "a homosexual person". I believe that when I say fag, I mean something in general negative. Nothing to do with homosexuals. Let's see....how about we call our expert witnesses? As the foremost authority on what I am thinking, I declare I am not referring to homosexuals. Can you top that? Didn't think so. Better luck tomorrow.

And when you say these things to other people, they're going to interpret them by their own mental lexicon, and a pretty sizable chunk of the populace is going to think that you're crude, rude, and possibly homophobic. After all, you're not an expert on what they're thinking, either. What you mean isn't as important as what they think you mean, when you're using words that can be taken in many different ways.

[DrFaroohk]

That's their problem, because they are wrong.

[Jaden]

I'm with you on retarded, too. All these speshul snowflake groups want to own these words. Screw off! I can use them when I feel like it, and I'm not talking about homosexuals or people with mental handicaps.

Someday I feel like there's going to be a real serious situation happening, like a burning building, and someone's gonna be like "Fuckin retarded fire! Let's get out!" and the idiots will be left behind bitching about how that's a bad word to say, and they'll burn to death.....and the world will be a better place. I suppose that's not so bad.

The dictionaries I always had listed things like Bitch, Ass, Fag, Gay, etc...as their original intended definitions. So...unless you're saying that words and meanings can change? Then they can change from bad too.

Or we can debate about what I meant! Let's see...you believe, when I said Fag, I meant "a homosexual person". I believe that when I say fag, I mean something in general negative. Nothing to do with homosexuals. Let's see....how about we call our expert witnesses? As the foremost authority on what I am thinking, I declare I am not referring to homosexuals. Can you top that? Didn't think so. Better luck tomorrow.

Further Edit: I frequently use the N word when talking to my friends. No matter how much you squeeze your little hands and stomp your little feet, when I say "Wassup nigga?" to my friends, I am never going to mean "Hello my friend! Down with the black man!"

Yes, speshul snowflake groups. Like the mentally handicapped. Those terrible entitled word-whores

Wow, you want people to die in a fire because they don't like it when people use certain words? That's reasonable.

Words and meanings can change. You don't get to decide when, though. Until they change, or if they change, "gay" and "fag" still mean what they mean, no matter what you say you mean when you say them. You can't communicate poorly and then mock other people for not understanding you. It'd be like if I started calling cars, I dunno, custard pies.

"I got a new custard pie today!" "Umm...ok?" "It's a 2013 model! I'm so happy!" "What the fuck are you talking about?" "Umm, a custard pie. You know, one of those things you drive around to get from place to place?" "...you mean, a car?" "Oh, sure, by your definition "

I don't get to decide when or what a word means, and neither do you. And the fact that you use the N-word is disgusting, but I'm guessing you take pride in that.

[Nekojin]

That's their problem, because they are wrong.

Not really. You're not some special flower who gets to define what every word you use means. There's this little thing called culture - the society around us - that has already made those definitions. And while words do shift meaning over time, using a word in a nonstandard meaning is only going to cause confusion - or, when the word is commonly understood to be derogatory, demeaning, or bigoted, cause offense, pain, and/or anger.

Thought experiment - call the next 100 women you meet, "bitch," and see how many take offense. Oh, but you don't mean it offensively? Too bad - you don't get to control how they react to your "innocent" usage.

The responsible thing to do would be to be mature, accept and acknowledge the impact of the words you use, and try to not use words that can be hurtful. But I'm not holding my breath.

[guywithashovel]

The other day, one of the African-American students here at work approached some of her friends in the all (who were also black) and shouted, "Hey, whassup my niggaz?!?!?"

All I could think was, "Man, if I shouted that, the reaction from other people would probably make the Earth move."

[Nyoibo]

Or we can debate about what I meant! Let's see...you believe, when I said Fag, I meant "a homosexual person". I believe that when I say fag, I mean something in general negative. Nothing to do with homosexuals. Let's see....how about we call our expert witnesses? As the foremost authority on what I am thinking, I declare I am not referring to homosexuals. Can you top that? Didn't think so. Better luck tomorrow.

Ok, I'll play, so out of the definitions put forward by the dictionary, which definition of fag is in general negative to you, you have to pick one and say why, you're using the english language with set definitions to words, explain otherwise that would mean by your logic I'm allowed to say you fetid piece of severed cuntflap* and go, no that's not offensive I think it means that you're a fluffy sunshine person.

That's their problem, because they are wrong.

Actually it's yours, because you are.



*appologies for the language, I was trying to make a specific point.

[HYHYBT]

Well gay meant happy during the time of writing the Flintstones theme song, so I've no idea when it got switched around to it's current meaning being the dominant/only definition of the word.

As I understand it, the meanings have the same origin and developed in parallel; it's just that the "happy" one is a lot easier to use when the other is something people don't speak much of.

[Fire_on_High]

XD Of course, if I say I'm going out to smoke a fag, I do not mean I'm burning homosexuals.

That reminds me of something from my early EQ days. I was in a GBLT friendly guild at the time, which was about 80% American, 20% Aussie.

One of the (straight) Aussies would mention something about going afk to smoke a fag...the American (gay) contingent gave him all sorts of hell about it. It was pretty funny, because he took the teasing well.

I do think he broke a lot of hearts when all he ever did was have a cigarette, tho.

[Ginger Tea]

the American (gay) contingent gave him all sorts of hell about it. It was pretty funny, because he took the teasing well.

Gave him hell as in got the wrong meaning of fag or called him out on being in Narnia?

"I'm not gay, I only put fags in my mouth."

[BlaqueKatt]

The dictionaries I always had listed things like Bitch, Ass, Fag, Gay, etc...as their original intended definitions. So...unless you're saying that words and meanings can change? Then they can change from bad too. .

yes there's even a wiki about it

A reclaimed or reappropriated word, is a word that was at one time a pejorative but has been brought back into acceptable usage—usually starting within the communities that experienced oppression under that word. Reclaiming or reappropriating a word involves re-evaluating a term that in the dominant culture is, or at one time was, used by a majority to oppress various minorities of that same culture. As such, the use of these terms by outside parties is usually viewed as strongly derogatory.

Clerks II was a movie, not real life, no one is Randall Graves.

Or we can debate about what I meant! Let's see...you believe, when I said Fag, I meant "a homosexual person". I believe that when I say fag, I mean something in general negative. Nothing to do with homosexuals.

except the only way it got to have the negative connotations was being used as a derogatory term for homosexuals.

[crashhelmet]

I feel pretty,
Oh so pretty.
I feel pretty and witty and gay
West Side Story -1957

Unless Maria was really Mariano, I don't think it meant what people thinks it means.

The first time I learned that fag was a slang term for cigarette was when I read the book Firefox, by Craig Thomas. I was in the 5th grade and the lines mentioning it made no sense to me because the only "definition" I knew at that time was the derogatory term for a homosexual. I remember trying to muster up the confidence to ask my parents about it without making them angry about me reading a book I "wasn't old enough to read."