That's So Gay: The Prescriptivist's Nightmare

"Not a Homosexual or somehing [sic] that you find stupid, dumb, idiotic, pointless, and or annoying.
It is simply a term to describe a happy mood or expression."

—      Urbandictionary.com user Tyler Turner, March 22, 2008[1]

Mr. Turner’s definition of the word “gay,” posted on Urbandictionary.com reveals a linguistic and cultural sore spot among many English speakers: the semantic drift that inevitably has given a word a meaning he does not like. Gay has, since at least the 1970s, almost exclusively meant “homosexual,” replacing the supposed original definition of “happy.” However, Mr. Turner is incorrect in saying “gay” only has one definition. The OED lists 72 senses (32 main senses, 40 subentry senses) of the word, beginning with “bright or lively-looking, esp. in colour; brilliant, showy” in the late Middle Ages. The word has a far more complicated legacy than the amateur lexicographer quoted above realizes.

The etymology of “gay” is difficult to trace. The OED is itself unsure of its origins, pointing to both Old High German and Occitan as possible originators. The word entered Middle English through French. Where the French got it from is debated. Both the OED and the DEAF, the Dictionnaire Étymologique de l'Ancien Français[2] suggest the French gai and its variants was descended from Old High German gāhi[3] (sometimes spelt gæhe) meaning quick and impetuous.[4] According to the OED's 2^nd edition in 1989, this theory "is now generally abandoned."[5] The 3^rd  edition seems less sure about it being abandoned, instead discussing at some length its possible Germanic origins. In my opinion, a more likely origin for the French word is from Old Occitan, also spelled gai or jai, meaning “joyful” as an adjective and “joy” as a noun.[6] This is analogous to the medieval French spellings gai, gae, gaye, gay, guai; wai, and way; which survives in modern French’s “gai,” which means happy, joyful, always in good humor,[7] identical to its meaning in the Middle Ages.[8] The Occitan word would be applied to the region’s troubadour poetry as “gai saber”: “gay knowledge,”[9] which Thomas Rymer would introduce to English as a name for poetry in 1693 as “the gay science.”[10]

“Gay” has several meanings in Anglo-Norman, the dialect of Old French spoken in England after the Norman Conquest. It could mean “frolicsome,” “happy,” and “lighthearted,” but it could also mean “fickle,” “impetuous,” “rash,” and “lascivious, lewd.”[11] These meanings were carried over to Middle English. The earliest use of “gay” attested to in the OED is in a Middle English manuscript dated to around 1200-1225, Cotton MS Cleopatra C.vi, part of the Ancrene Riwle, a book of instructions for anchoresses. A marginal note reads, in a very archaic dialect, "Hwi þe Gay world is to fleon," though the exact sense of gay is unclear. It is not clear when the first sense of gay—"Bright or lively-looking, esp. in colour; brilliant, showy” is attested to, as medieval books were rarely the first version of their contents. The earliest possible date for an attestation in the popular poem Kyng Alisaunderis 1300, though the manuscript is probably from around 1425. Other earlier uses are in a 1338 chronicle by Robert Mannyng; and The Romance of William of Palerne in 1350.[12]

The earliest uses of “gay” in English were relatively neutral and indeed, often positive. It soon came to mean “finely or showily dressed,” as used by Chaucer in his Parlement of Foules; “noble and excellent” as early as 1350 and often used poetically as an epithet for a noble woman, notably in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The familiar definition of "cheerful, lighthearted, merry" also dates to the 1380s, with the Pearl Poet in Cleanness and Chaucer in Troilus & Crisyde. Somehow a regional expression developed along the lines of "to have a gay mind," meaning "to be inclined to," like the modern "I have a good mind to...", first attested to by William of Palerne around 1350. This would be used as late as 1932 but is now considered obsolete. The noble definition became ironic, especially when employed by the Scots, beginning in the 1580s. “Gay” in modern English is both an adjective and a noun. This study will focus on its adjectival use.

Like its Anglo-Norman predecessor, the Middle English “gay” had negative connotations. Chaucer uses it in “The Miller’s Tale,” when the smith asks Absalom “What eyleth yow? Som gay gerl, God it woot, / Hath broght yow thus upon the viritoot.” (Mil.l.3769-3770).[13] Here, “gay” means lewd and wanton, like one of the earlier Anglo-Norman definitions. The late sixteenth century introduced “dedicated to social pleasures; dissolute, promiscuous; frivolous, hedonistic” to the definitions, and this would be popular through the nineteenth century, appearing in terms such as “gay blade,” “gay deceiver,” and “gay lothario.” At this point, the word indicated someone who may not have been always moral but also wasn’t depraved.[14] By the 1790s, a “gay lady” could be a prostitute and a “gay house” a brothel, extending the definitions of dissolution and promiscuity. It is probably the combined senses of frivolity, hedonism, and ultimately immorality that led to “gay” being applied to homosexual men.

“Gay” as slang for “homosexual” is usually dated to the early twentieth century, with the OED suggesting a 1922 short story by Gertrude Stein, “Miss Furr & Miss Skeene,” as the first written attestation. Geoffrey Hughes in An Encyclopedia of Swearing reports that the 1972 OED Supplement traces it back even further to 1889 in England, with the Cleveland Street Scandal, in which a homosexual brothel frequented by some of London’s elite was uncovered, though the use of “gay” appears to be the then-current sense of promiscuous rather than anything specific to homosexuality. More certain uses date to the 1930s.[15] “Gay” became the accepted, non-medical and non-derogatory term for homosexual men and women (along with their own term “lesbian”) by the 1970s, and it remains in common use today. A new sense of “lame, stupid” appeared in the 1980s and was popular among children in the mid-2000s, possibly arising from the negative associations of attraction to the same gender, including weakness. This usage has been rejected by members of the LGBT community. The “homosexual” sense of the word is now considered the most prevalent use, and is listed first in most dictionaries organized logically, including The American Heritage Dictionary’s current 5^th edition, The New Oxford American Dictionary, and Dictionary.com. 

Zits, July 25, 2006. Jeremy encounters the ambiguity of "gay." [16]

“Gay” has become a controversial word, with many people objecting to its use by “the gays.” “[The] special-interest use of gay,” fumes John Simon, “undermines the correct use of a legitimate and needed English word. It now becomes ambiguous to call a cheerful person or thing gay; to wish someone a gay journey or holiday, for example, may have totally uncalled-for over- and undertones and, in conservative circles, may even be considered insulting. The insulting aspect we can eventually get rid of; the ambiguous, never. What do we do about it? If we energetically reject gay as a legitimate synonym for homosexual, it may not be too late to bury this linguistic abomination.”[17] This ambiguity is apparently too much for some people. Historian Paul Johnson agrees, saying “There is no historical case for homosexual ownership of ‘gay.’ So can we have our word back, please.”[18]

Johnson is appealing to an etymological fallacy—“gay” doesn’t mean homosexual, that use dates back to only the early twentieth century and the word has been stolen from normal usage! This controversy is, says Fowler’s Dictionary of English Modern Usage, “a cloak for much darker sociological concerns.”[19] Wayne R. Dynes calls this in his Encyclopedia of Homosexuality "a particularly ludicrous complaint… advanced by some heterosexual writers, that the 'innocent' word gay has been 'kidnapped' by homosexuals in their insouciant willingness to subvert the canons of language as well as morals." This complaint ignores that "gay" was applied by an ostensibly heterosexual society to people deemed immoral long before it was supposedly stolen.[20]

The changing definition of “gay” is controversial both for its connection to a controversial topic and the challenge it poses to prescriptivism. The most prevalent definition in the twenty-first century is not what it was in medieval France and England. To prescriptivists, homophobic or not, this is a terrifying thing—someone took a perfectly good, innocent word and changed its meaning, so much that one can no longer employ its “correct use” without people thinking of the evil linguistic thief that is the modern homosexual. Feelings on sexual orientation aside, this represents the apparently arbitrary change of language that prescriptivists abhor—a word changing meaning entirely in a very short time, on the whim of non-experts, and the subsequent ruining of a word. If it happened with “gay” it can happen with anything.

Life in Hell, 1986.[21] The idea that words can be "ruined" is representative of prescriptivist complaints.

There are two problems with this. First, there is no single authority of the English language who tells all English speakers how they can and cannot use words. No one is telling you that you cannot use “gay” to mean happy or bright. Second, “gay” has never had only one meaning. Even the Anglo-Norman predecessor and the Middle English forms had multiple definitions. Geoffrey Chaucer, inarguably the standard of Middle English, used it to mean "showily dressed" in Parlement of Foules, "joyful" in Troilus & Crisyde and "wanton" in The Canterbury Tales. Nor has it always been “innocent.” “Gay” had pejorative senses in both Anglo-Norman and Middle English, and in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries denoted prostitutes, rakes, and an overall sense of being frivolous and too given to pleasure, hardly innocent subjects.

The semantic drift of “gay” and the subsequent debates over its use reveals the shortcomings of prescriptivism and its underlying social fears. The existence of a polysemous word with an ambiguous origin is bad enough—that its definition has changed almost entirely within living memory is linguistic anarchy. The language of “stealing” and “ruining” is especially indicative of the social dimension of this anxiety. In a way, Paul Johnson is correct, there is no proof of homosexual “ownership” of the word. However, there is no proof of heterosexual ownership. Language develops according to the needs of its users, and “gay” simply managed to fill multiple roles.

Special thanks to my research assistant N.

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[1] Tyler Turner, “Urban Dictionary: Gay,” Urban Dictionary, accessed February 25, 2020, https://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=Tyler%20Turner.
[2] “DEAF Électronique,” accessed March 5, 2020, https://deaf-server.adw.uni-heidelberg.de/?type=image&letter=g&column=35.
[3] "Gay, adj., adv., and n.". OED Online. March 2020. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.ezproxy.library.pfw.edu/view/Entry/77207?isAdvanced=false&result=1&rskey=BAxG22& (accessed March 04, 2020).
[4] “Gâhe Bis Vergâhe (Bd. I, Sp. 454a Bis 455b),” Wörterbuchnetz - Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch von Benecke, Müller, Zarncke, accessed March 5, 2020, http://www.woerterbuchnetz.de/cgi-bin/WBNetz/wbgui_py?sigle=BMZ&lemid=BG00015&mode=Vernetzung&hitlist=&patternlist=&mainmode=.
[5] “Gay, a., Adv., and n.,” Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, https://www.oed.com/oed2/00093147;jsessionid=42AAD765EE4AFB8EAEADAFE1CC85B909.
[6] “Gay, adj., adv., and n.". OED Online.
[7] Éditions Larousse, “Définitions : gai - Dictionnaire de français Larousse,” accessed March 5, 2020, https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/gai/35802.
[8] ATILF - CNRS & Université de Lorraine, “GAI, Adj.,” Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330-1500), accessed March 5, 2020, http://atilf.atilf.fr/scripts/dmfAAA.exe?LEM=gai;XMODE=STELLa;FERMER;;AFFICHAGE=0;MENU=menu_dmf;;ISIS=isis_dmf2015.txt;MENU=menu_recherche_dictionnaire;OUVRIR_MENU=1;ONGLET=dmf2015;OO1=2;OO2=1;OO3=-1;s=s126320ac;LANGUE=FR;.
[9] Wayne R. Dynes, “Gay,” in Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, vol. 1 (New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc, 1990), 455.
[10] “Gay, adj., adv., and n.". OED Online.
[11] The Anglo-Norman Dictionary, “Gai,” The Anglo-Norman Dictionary, accessed March 5, 2020, http://www.anglo-norman.net/D/gai1.
[12] OED Online.
[13] “1.3 The Miller’s Prologue and Tale,” Harvard’s Geoffrey Chaucer Website, accessed March 5, 2020, https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/millers-prologue-and-tale.
[14] Dynes, 455.
[15] Geoffrey Hughes, “Homosexuals,” in An Encyclopedia of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-Speaking World (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2006), 327.
[16] Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman, Zits, comic strip, July 25, 2006.
[17] John Simon, Paradigms Lost 27 (1980): cited in Geoffrey Hughes, “Homosexuals,” in An Encyclopedia of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-Speaking World (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2006), 314.
[18] Paul Johnson (1995): cited in “Gay,” in Fowler’s Dictionary of English Modern Usage (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 338.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Dynes, Homosexuality, 456.
[21] Matt Groening, Life In Hell, comic strip, 1986.

Persnickety Historian Review - Victoria ITV

ITV's Victoria wrapped up its second season here in the States a couple of weeks ago. It ended with some bombshells-- okay, the revelation of bombshells we the audience already knew about, only now to other characters. We get another heaping of sumptuous settings, pretty costumes, and the lovely Jenna Coleman. Joining the cast this season is Diana Rigg as the Duchess of Buccleuch, playing the same character she does on Game of Thrones, and adding a lot of old-lady sass and wisdom. I love this woman. So, does Victoria reign supreme? Why am I resorting to reviewer cliches? I'll answer one of those in this review, which is more about the series as a whole but most examples are from the recent season.

First, the show as just a show. Every historical drama now has to measure up to Downton Abbey, which, let's face it, isn't going to happen. Victoria definitely succeeds in the sheer gorgeousness of the setting and costuming, bringing to life the early Victorian period (when you think "Victorian," you're probably thinking of Sherlock Holmes era, some forty years after this show). It truly is some eye candy, especially when they visit locations outside of London. Unfortunately storywise, there isn't much to hold my attention.

To put it bluntly, Victoria fails to have the dramatic and emotional depth to be more than another period piece. It tries desperately for a fictional downstairs story, but it didn't leave much of an impression on me and I can't remember any of the servants' names, except for Mr. Penge (also, is it just me or does Buckingham have far too few servants?). The same goes for the upstairs-- even with the Queen I find it hard to become invested in the fictional plotlines. The trouble, I think, comes from there not being an overarching plot with a single goal in mind to connect episodes and make a meaningful season finale (think the "myth arc" vs. the "monster of the week" formula from The X-Files-- some episodes form a series-spanning plot, others are just one-offs). I was very excited to have Ada Lovelace and Isambard Kingdom Brunell guest star, but I felt like this was something special, rather than just other historical figures in a show about history.

Acting-wise, it's a bit hit-or-miss, especially considering historical portrayal. The first season was graced with Rufus Sewell, who is missed, and this season has the wonderful Diana Rigg, who's worth watching the show for alone. Jenna Coleman continues to be a sweet, energetic Queen, but she doesn't reflect Victoria's forceful personality in its more flawed sense. There never seems to be anything really negative from her, she's just a high-spirited monarch here, despite her historical serious temper and obstinateness. Granted, Queen Victoria was a remarkable figure and I'm not sure she ever truly could be fully emulated. Jenna is still enjoyable though, and I don't fault her too much, just the writing. On the other hand, Tom Hughes, Jenna's real-life boyfriend, is a boring and frustrating Albert. Like his portrayal of the Duke of Aumerle in The Hollow Crown version of Richard II (2012), he seems blank at best and sometimes zoned-out. His ongoing borderline power struggle with Victoria and the inaccurate portrayal of their relationship initially being testy rather than love-at-first-sight as it was historically leave them seeming to not be a good match.

Now for the history.

This show is frustrating. Daisy Goodwin, series creator and head writer brags about balancing history and fiction, but I don't think she's done that at all. Historical fiction can be an awesome genre when done well, but to make it so requires attention to detail and the understanding that history is exciting enough on its own and doesn't need embellishment. Goodwin alters things, saying "My rule is that I can change the odd date, move people around here and there, so long as I am faithful to the emotional truth of the characters."¹ She goes far beyond that-- she does everything from change the ages of figures, like the Duchess of Bucchleuch (who was actually in her thirties at the time) to creating whole new relationships, as with Alfred Paget and Edward Drummond, who weren't actually in one-- which was disappointing, since they were one of the best parts of the season. The decision to include queer characters was great, if only Goodwin had invented them, or better yet found some in history rather than making up a relationship.

Rather unsurprisingly, some things are made a little more positive or palatable to modern viewers, like the episode on An Gorta Mór--  the Irish Famine. Queen Victoria is portrayed as caring a lot about Ireland, whereas in history she wasn't all that concerned-- she certainly isn't appreciated in Irish history, being called "The Famine Queen." However inaccurate the portrayal is, I do see something good came out of the episode as a whole. British viewers were shocked at the depiction of the Famine, having not been taught much about it.²  This is called a difficult encounter in public history, and it forces us to face something we don't want to think about, and I have to praise the show for doing that, even if Victoria's reaction is sanitized (which is still an issue).

I was, however, surprised to find out that some of the stuff that sounded made-up to me (my specialty isn't this period so I've been doing a lot of fact checking) actually do have basis in fact, like the rumor that Albert is actually a bastard, which did exist. In the show, Uncle Leopold claims he believes he is actually Albert's father. This particular paternity claim, made by David Duff (1972) is iffy at best, but works for the show since Uncle Leopold continues to be the Cigarette Smoking Man of the series. On a more verifiable front, this was the first time I'd heard of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, and I learned more about her after looking her up. That's part of the fun of good historical media, learning about the real thing and maybe being introduced to something new in the process.

Victoria isn't perfect, though it has promise. It's held back by its lack of narrative direction, and more seriously it's marred by Goodwin freely admitting she makes things up but still remains true to the history, not to mention inaccurate portrayals of some serious things, like the Queen's reaction to the Famine. However, it's had some great non-political figures appear, like Ada Lovelace, and it's been the first exposure many people have had to some of the period's more difficult topics. It also has prompted me to research more of this period, if just to know the background. Goodwin says season 3 will explore more "sexual tension" between Victoria and Albert, which I can only guess means Tom Hughes will learn to make some facial expressions, but if it means that there will be a more accurate portrayal of this love story, that'd be worth it. Let's just hope Goodwin, who's based the show more or less off of Victoria's copious personal diaries, will let her subject herself tell the story more in the future.

¹ Daisy Goodwin, "Victoria writer Daisy Goodwin: how I struck a balance between drama and historical accuracy," RadioTimes, accessed March 6, 2018, http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2018-03-03/victoria-season-2-finale-itv/.

2“British TV viewers shocked by Famine scenes in Victoria,” Raidió Teilifís Éireann, accessed March 8, 2018, https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2017/1003/909290-british-tv-viewers-shocked-by-famine-scenes-in-victoria/.

Sonnet 116 - I Want to Know What Love Is

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

  Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 is part of the Fair Youth sequence addressed to an anonymous young man. This sonnet does not mention its recipient, instead focusing on a general theme of the nature of love. This theme is divided into four themes, one for each quatrain and the couplet. Quatrain 1 is a list of things love will not do, quatrain 2 uses nautical imagery to describe the constancy of love, and quatrain 3 is on the passage of time. The couplet finishes the sonnet with a challenge to the reader to prove the author wrong in his assessment. All of these reticulate and refer back to each other.
Quatrain 1 begins this study of what love is with a list of the things that should not happen with love. “Let me not the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments” (116.1-2) is a direct reference to legal barriers to marriage but can be taken in a more general sense to mean an obstacle. “Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds” (116.2-3), meaning love does not try to change the perceived faults of the person who is loved. If it does, then it is not love. It also does not bend “with the remover to remove.” The other will still be loved through hardship and will not be changed by the remover, time (116.4). Time’s role in love will be expanded upon in quatrain 3.

 Quatrain 2’s description of love’s characteristics employs nautical imagery. It is “an ever-fixed mark” (116.5), bringing to mind a landmark such as a lighthouse or some other stationary landmark to guide sailors even during storms. Likewise, love is constant, even in the face of figurative “tempests” (116.6), and like the stars used to navigate, love is the “start to every wand’ring bark. It can be measured, like the stars, but its true value is “unknown” (116.7-8).

 Quatrain 3 expands upon love against the “remover” time as mentioned in line 4. “Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks / Within his bending sickle’s compass come” (116.9-10). The physical world, especially the human body is under the control of time, but as said in the first quatrain love does not “bend” or change with time. The “compass” in line 10 is both a description of the scythe carried by Time personified and a callback to the nautical navigational imagery of the previous quatrain. Another callback occurs in line 11, “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks” (116.11)  returning to lines 2 and 3 in the first quatrain, “Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds” (116.2-3). Ultimately, love lasts to “the edge of doom”-- doomsday, or the end of time (116.12).

 The ending couplet is a challenge to the reader to in turn challenge the poet. “If this be error and upon me proved / I never write, nor no man ever loved” (116.13-14). If he is wrong in his description of love, then he has never written anything and love is not real, just as he said in lines 1 and 2 to not let him “admit impediments” to the “marriage of true minds.” His claim that if he is in error he has never written is bold, especially considering the previous 115 sonnets he has just written to a fair youth.