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Faggot or fag, in modern American English, Canadian English and Australian English usage, is a generally pejorative term for a gay or effeminate man. Its use has spread to varying extents elsewhere in the English-speaking world.
Etymology
The origins of the word in this sense are rather obscure...IT IS USED TO DESCRIBE KEN MIRANDA
It is often claimed that the derivation is associated directly with faggot meaning "bundle of sticks for burning", since homosexuals were supposedly burnt at the stake in medieval England. Alternatively, the Bible is claimed to refer to homosexuals stoking the fires of hell. This, however, is an urban myth. There is no such passage in the Bible, and there has never been a tradition in England of burning homosexuals at the stake. Admittedly the practice was not unknown elsewhere in Christian Europe, and burning was used in Britain for heretics and witches, but this ended centuries before the word faggot became associated with gay people. Morton, Mark (2005) Dirty Words: The Story of Sex Talk. London: Atlantic Books; see also: www.etymonline.com.
More significantly, the word has been used since the late sixteenth century to mean "old or unpleasant woman". ibid. Female terms are often used with reference to homosexual or effeminate men (cf. nancy, sissy, queen) and this seems the most likely derivation. It is also possible that the meaning derives from the use of the word as a derogatory term for street prostitutes, female and male, because of their association with the gutter, where "faggot-ends" of meat were thrown by butchers. The term "faggot girls" for prostitutes is attested from the late 19th century.
The Yiddish word faygele, lit. "little bird", although unlikely to be the direct origin of the word in its modern US sense, may well have reinforced its use.
British meanings
"Faggot"
The word faggot is occasionally used in parts of Britain to denote a silly or foolish person, presumably as an extension of its earlier association with old women. In the pilot episode of the 1960s British comedy In Loving Memory from Yorkshire Television, undertaker Jeremiah Unsworth is killed in an accident at work. After the funeral, widow Ivy receives the condolences of her old friend Amy Jenkins, who says, "He heard the call. He answered it. And he fell in the line of duty. No man can ask for a better epitaph than that." Ivy thanks her, says good-bye, and then turns to her nephew, Billy, as soon as the door is shut and says in reference to Amy, "Silly old faggot! 'He heard the call?' 'He answered it?' The only call your Uncle Jeremiah ever heard was, 'Time, Gentlemen, please!'."The term is also used, especially in Wales and the Black Country, to refer to a kind of pork meatball covered in gravy. See Faggot (food).
"Fag"
In British English the term fag (though not faggot) most commonly means a cigarette. A military marching song popular with the British army during the First World War featured the line "while there's a Lucifer (matchstick) to light your fag...". This is only one example of linguistic evidence of the word fag pre-dating the rise of the gay movement in the West. The unsmoked remains of a cigarette are called "fag ends". As these are often thrown into the gutter, it has been suggested that this contributed to the American slang use. This is not very likely, however, since Americans have almost never referred to cigarettes as "fags". In Britain "fag" is still a very common slang term for a cigarette."Fag" was a term used for a junior boy who acted as a servant for a senior boy at Eton College, near Eton, Berkshire, and other British public schools. This practice, known as "fagging", was ended in the 1970s. Since the homosexual meaning was not common in the UK at this time and seems to have been first attached to faggot, not fag, this is not a likely origin for the American use of the word.
The American Meaning in Britain
The words fag and faggot have become understood as an Americanism in British English, primarily due to its use in films and television series imported from the United States. When Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews was heard using the word in a bad-tempered exchange in the House of Commons lobby in November 2005, most listeners assumed that he meant to question the target's sexuality.
Earliest written uses
The earliest known reference to the word in print was in the 1914 Jackson and Hellyer A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang, with Some Examples of Common Usages which listed the following example under the word, drag:
- "All the fagots (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight."
- "a bulldyking woman and a faggoty man"
Culture
"Fag" and "faggot" have historically been two of the most offensive terms that could be addressed to an American man or adolescent boy. Even so, in recent years, both terms have become employed by gay men in a defiant, self-consciously empowering or self-mocking way, much in the way some African Americans have taken to using the word "nigger" among themselves. A common example of this would be usage of the term "fag hag" to describe a woman who associates with (and may prefer as non-sexual social partners) gay men, though this use, too, was originally pejorative. When used as a pejorative, however, it is still a powerful term of abuse. Among many gay men, use of the term (especially by perceived outsiders) is considered offensive or impolite. The term has been used to describe lesbians or other homosexual women.
Originally confined to the United States, "fag" and "faggot" in their homosexual senses have been spread by American popular culture to other English-speaking countries, where it has partly displaced terms such as "queer" or the British "poof" as colloquial or abusive terms for gay men, particularly among heterosexual youth. However, the continuing use of "fag" in British slang to mean cigarette and "faggot" to mean a bundle of sticks (or a fool) has severely limited adoption of the American use of the terms in the British Isles.
The observational comedian George Carlin once pointed out the fine distinction between "faggot" and "queer" from his youth. He said that "queer" meant homosexual, whereas "faggot" merely meant "unmanly". As he put it, "A faggot was someone who wouldn't go downtown on Saturday night and help beat up queers!"
In one episode of Family Guy, when the bar that Peter, Quagmire, Cleveland, and Joe frequent is purchased by a British man, Cleveland states that all he knows about British English is that fag means cigarette. Peter then comments that they should "kick these cigarettes' butts".
The lyrics for the 1985 song hit Money for Nothing by Dire Straits were based on comments that the song's writer overheard being said by an applicance delivery man. It includes the lines "the little faggot with the earring and the makeup; yeh, buddy, that's his own hair; the little faggot got his own jet airplane; the little faggot is a millionaire". The repeated usage of the term, although used mockingly by the songwriter, nonetheless caused some controversy. It is another example of the British usage meaning "fool". In this instance there is also an implied ridiculing of the manliness, but not necessarily the sexual orientation, of the comment's target. That presumption in this song is underscored by the delivery man's repeated assertion, "Money for nothing, chicks for free".
References
External links
- How did "faggot" get to mean "male homosexual"? on The Straight Dope.
- Entries for faggot on Urban Dictionary.
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"Faggot (epithet)"