Can we talk about the etymology of f*****?
Posted Feb 25, 2013, 8:16 PM UTC
2040
Something to keep in mind is that identify politics is relatively new. Historically, people would refer to, and condemn (if they condemned), specific acts, rather than someone's "sexual orientation". That etymology feels anachronistic to me -- it suggests that tactics bigots have adopted to fight a powerful thing like identity politics existed before the identity politics itself came into being.
This is me assembling some ideas to say "eh, it's doubtful", rather than the result of actual research on the topic, so take with a large grain of salt.
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I'm not sure I understand your point here. Etymology exists regardless of sexual or identity politics.
Also, I wonder how, or why, you create the distinction between sexual orientation and specific acts. It seems as if the distinction exists only in the sense that we now call identity politics what at the time was called possession, evil, or some other tautological term.
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I'm not sure I understand your point here. Etymology exists regardless of sexual or identity politics.
But language is shaped by the concepts in use at the time. Sexual identity is a relatively new way of thinking about things. It's a very powerful way to think about sexual behavior if you want to unite a group and push for social justice, and I think that it has lead to a fairer and juster society, even if it can lead to confusion when one tries to map one's actual sexual behavior against an identity ...
... but the people who were burning witches would have been confused if you had attempted to talk to them about someone's sexual orientation, or someone's sexual identity. It's unlikely that they would have thought to coin a word to refer to gay people as a group, because gay people weren't conceptualized as a group with an identity in medieval Europe.
Edit: just read your other comment, a few posts down, and I see what you're saying. But I think that people are using the etymology to say that "once upon a time, people said heretics should be burnt with fire and ...", and therefore, the use of the word is an implied threat to burn someone at the stake. That's drawing a direct connection across several centuries of usage, and I'm not sure that the evidence is there to support the argument. (Not that one should ever use the word -- it has plenty of implied violence, regardless of connections to burning at the stake -- just that saying "you shouldn't use this word because stakes!" isn't the most honest of arguments.)
Edit2: Fixed excessive auto-bolding.
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Umm, I'm not sure what resources you were looking at, but two seconds in the OED yielded this:
2. a. With special reference to the practice of burning heretics alive, esp. in phrase fire and faggot; †to fry a faggot , to be burnt alive; also, to bear a faggot , to carry a faggot , as those did who renounced heresy. Hence fig. the punishment itself.
a1555 H. Latimer Serm. & Remains (1845) 277 Running out of Germany for fear of the fagot.
1621 R. Montagu Diatribæ Hist. Tithes 44 You deserued to fry a fagot.
1649 Bp. J. Hall Resol. & Decisions iii. v. 274 Fagots were never ordained by the Apostle for arguments to confute hereticks.
1667 M. Poole Dialogue between Popish Priest & Protestant (1735) 101 You answer our Arguments with Fire and Faggot.
1721 J. Strype Eccl. Memorials I. viii. 86 He should go before the cross bare-headed..carrying a faggot on his shoulder.
1741 I. Watts Improvem. Mind i. xiv. 195 Mitres or Faggots have been the Rewards of different Persons according as they pronounced these consecrated Syllables, or not pronounced them.
1807 J. Barlow Columbiad iv. 144 Racks, wheels and crosses, faggots, stakes and strings.
1868 J. H. Blunt Reformation Church of Eng. I. 85 Wolsey caused them to carry a faggot to the fire..Henry placed them in the midst of actual faggots.
1888 J. Gairdner in Dict. National Biogr. XIII. 30/2 It is not easy to answer arguments in prison, with fire and faggots in the background.
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But there is no connection between "heretic" and "homosexual" - at least as it relates to the word faggot etymologically. Read near the end of this page:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=faggot&allowed_in_frame=0
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Their point isn't that the word 'faggot' was never used to refer to a burning bundle of sticks, but that there's no particular connection between the burning bundle meaning and the gay slur meaning. Just because both meanings exist doesn't mean that the two are connected in any meaningful way - this is a common mistake people make when thinking about etymology.
The burning bundle meaning developed as such: unknown --> Old French 'fagot' [bundle of sticks] --> English 'faggot' [bundle of twigs bound up] --> English 'faggot' [symbol for heresy/burning heretics]
The gay slur meaning developed as such: unknown --> Old French 'fagot' [bundle of sticks] --> English 'faggot' [bundle of twigs bound up] --> English 'faggot' [from 1590s, derogatory term for women, as something awkward that has to be carried or baggage] --> English 'faggot' [from 1914, derogatory term for gay men]
Although the two words have the same etymological roots, they diverge before burning anyone gets involved. The word 'faggot' as a slur for gay men did not arise because gay men were being burned like bundles of wood, although the word 'faggot' to talk about heretics did arise, separately, for this reason.
More info from etymonline:
The oft-reprinted assertion that male homosexuals were called faggots because they were burned at the stake as punishment is an etymological urban legend. Burning was sometimes a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (on the suggestion of the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorrah), but in England, where parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense in 1533, hanging was the method prescribed. Any use of faggot in connection with public executions had long become an English historical obscurity by the time the word began to be used for "male homosexual" in 20th century American slang, whereas the contemptuous slang word for "woman" (and the other possible sources or influences listed here) was in active use. It was used in this sense in early 20c. by D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, among others.
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[I misunderstood something deleuzed was saying here originally, so I just cut it out.]
More importantly, homosexuals were hanged, not burnt at the stake, at the time of this word being used to mean "people burnt at the stake", so there's no reason to assume a connection.
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I'm not sure I understand what you are arguing. Of course the 17th c. usage of the word didn't reference homosexuals as the very idea of homosexuality was itself a 19th c. invention. But etymological history is not the same as connotation. Just because things have two separate dictionary definitions does not somehow mean that the two terms are entirely unrelated in speech. The fact that a single term can have multiple connotations forms the basis for like all literature and there's no reason to believe that this effect does not extend to speech as well.
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Never mind, I misunderstood what you were saying and it's not really relevant anyway. I'll just cut it out to focus on the real point, which is that there's no reason to associate people burned at the stake with homosexuals, because they weren't burned at the stake.
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Meh, yeah, go ahead and correct people. Maybe PM them so you don't look like a pedantic dick or embarrass them. It's bad to spread around false etymologies, and it's unnecessary to do so in order to defend the point that using the word is messed up. What matters is what the word connotes today, and sometimes etymologies help us to do that, but 1) they're not strictly necessary in talking about connotations, and sometimes obscure the point and 2) the true etymology in this case actually is somewhat elucidating in that respect. Maybe share that with them instead.
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The main reason I want to correct it is because I worry that if, say, there's a long post with a dozen well articulated points and then the incorrect etymology, a reader who may be a little troubled about their homophobia by the other points can dismiss it too easily by just saying, "Oh, they're wrong about this, I imagine they don't know what they're talking about."
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I was under the impression that the burning at the stake thing was a myth, and that the word was originally a slur against older women. It was meant to imply that a woman was so useless, that she had to be essentially carried around like a bundle of sticks. She was a burden. Then the term started being applied to gay men, to imply not only that they were like women, but that they were like useless, infertile, un-sexy women. So when using it to refer to a man, it was a bit like calling him a, 'useless little bitch' today. Eventually the association with older women faded, and the word just meant 'gay, and therefore bad'
But even if it was a word chosen at random, I think that the fact that no one alive today has grown up using the word to mean 'gay' or 'as bad as being gay' means that the 'it just means a bunch of sticks' argument is pointless.
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From reading this thread I think there are many people here who have very little etymological knowledge who are trying to participate anyway (despite knowing next to nothing about etymology.) So I don't think you're going to find much meaningful discussion here. OP, I'd suggest taking this question to an etymology subreddit.
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OP is pretty sure (and is right) about the etymology of the word. That's not really the main thing being discussed here. Also there is plenty of fact-based discussion of etymology here anyway.
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You're not wrong. But, to my mind, it's irrelevant, because the folk etymology has unpleasant resonances with people today, and that is what matters even if it's incorrect. It actually seems the 'homosexual' denotation of faggot derives from the word's use as 'a term of abuse or contempt applied to a woman': its first incidence (according to the OED) being, 'All the fagots (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight.' Which is also quite bad.
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I'm so confused...are you basically saying 'it's false, but effective, and that's what matters'...?
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It's nothing to do with efficacy. Personally, I will correct the false etymology when I see it, but not in an effort to discredit whatever feelings arise upon hearing the word.
I suppose what I meant was that, for many people, the association of faggot with a past of persecution is still quite strong (even if it didn't manifest in burning at the stake), and that is what matters. In every comment thread about the Louis CK bit, someone will butt in to say, 'Hey, guess what? That etymology is wrong, therefore I can use that word all I want!' But the veracity of the false etymology simply shouldn't factor in its offensiveness--the word has historically negative connotations; has been an insult almost since its inception (whether referring to heretics, women, or gay men); and is offensive, period.
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I see. Yes, the word is bad on its own. Spreading misinformation is also bad, so I agree with you that it's a good idea to correct the false etymology while also acknowledging that we can still easily understand why it's wrong to use the word.
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My main reason for trying to correct people on the etymology of the word (which i have done a few times in the past) is that it's such a relatively well known false etymology that it hands the opponent of anyone asserting it in an argument an instant way to discredit them.
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My layman's research showed me that the connection to burning at the stake was a myth. Rather, sources I read said that it was a word used to refer to a disagreeable woman (in the same vein as "battleaxe") in the early 1900s and the definition eventually shifted to homosexuals. I'll try and find where I read this if I can.
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Yeah, that's my understanding as well.
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It's cool, no one censor the word in the comments, guys. :/
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You are just the bravest.
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Are you lost?
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Prime is a circlejerk. Deal with it.
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Ok, just to get one thing out of the way: you can definitely talk about the etymology of the word if you're having a discussion on etymology. If you're discussing why the word is offensive, the way they used the word 500 years ago is completely irrelevant. In todays world it has 2 meanings: "gay person (usually a man, but often trans people)" and "bad person" and it's impossible to seperate the two meanings.
It's entirely reasonable to trace the history of a word's development as a means of understanding its connotations today. Linguists do this all the time. It isn't the only information that's relevant when figuring out what a word connotes, but since connotation is a squishy subject ("no, I don't think of it as meaning gay, it just means a bad person of any sexuality!") it's useful to have 'data' like this that backs up your reading of the word. (In this case, the data is bad and needs to be thrown out, but that's beside the point.) Tracing etymological histories is especially relevant when we're talking about words that have been pejorized by their association with a particular marginalized group.
But you have to be careful not to forget that words regularly switch connotations entirely. Examples: nice (originally meant stupid/ignorant), terrific (frightening), quaint (clever), heck even modern examples like bad and literally prove that past connotations of a word often have very little impact on future developments.
Those connotation changes are part of the etymology of a word. It's always important to be thorough.
I'm not sure which linguists you're talking about.
As a whole, the study of linguistics is not prescriptive. We may care how language got from point A to point B, but we are certainly not able to use that knowledge to dictate nor justify a current use. Generally, the linguists most interested in etymology aren't rally interested in modern day usages at all (because they're more interested in reconstruction and cognates and other fun things like that).
But I'm by no means an expert. If you could point me towards any current research (especially sociolinguistic stuff) that uses a word's etymology to draw conclusions about its current use, I'd love to see it! It sounds really interesting (I just doubt its explanatory adequacy).
Wait, I actually just realized that grammaticalization is this kind of process. But it seems pretty far removed from what you're talking about.
Obviously.
Yes. That is precisely what studying etymology does.
I'm not talking about 'dictating or justifying' usage AT ALL and I'm not sure where you got that from. I'm talking about understanding the connotations of a word in the society in which it's used. That is what linguists use etymological study for.
I think you're confused. Etymology IS a linguistic study. I'm talking about linguists who study things like semantic shift and language change. Etymology isn't just asking "what are the origins of this word?" but "how and why did the meaning of this word/the shape of the word change over time?"
e: I think I get why you were confused now. When I said 'linguists do this all the time,' I didn't mean 'linguists trace the history of a word in order to explain why it's unacceptable,' but 'linguists trace the history of a word in order to examine and explain its current connotations.' Most linguists aren't interested in using that information to talk about the ethics of using those words, but understanding a word's connotation can be used for that purpose.
Sorry, I misunderstood when you said "trace the history of a word's development as a means of understanding its connotations today." Could you explain this point more clearly then? I fail to see how using a word's etymology is useful in discussing its current connotations as anything other than a justification ("it used to mean X so its okay") or a prescription ("It means X so don't use it to mean Y"). I'd appreciate it if you could tell me how etymology is useful in that way, or point me to some research that does what you say it does. Heck, I'd even settle for a name or two!
I'm not trying to be shitty here. I know that we can look at the pretty widespread pejoration of feminine terms throughout history (spinster, girly, pussy, the cyclic amelioration-pejoration of queen, etc). From this, it a pretty easy conclusion to say that there's a patriarchal bias, or women-as-inferior mindset in these coinages. But the etymology alone can't tell us why these things happen, nor help us understand any better that shitty people use "pussy" as an insult to emasculate men.
Etymology is useful for some things, but it's not very useful at all in describing the current connotations of a word. One's time would be much better spent simply asking someone what "f*****" means, rather than researching its etymology.
Most definitely. I am one hundred percent against the use of this word as an insult. It's horrendous and should be stopped immediately.
The etymology of the word is historically related to misogyny, not burning.
Yeah, that's what I'm arguing. I should have put that in the OP.
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