For years I thought “bugger” just means “to annoy” or something like that, so I would say things like “This buggers me” or “You don’t have to get so buggered about it.”
I’ve never encountered that word used with a homophobic intent, as far as I could tell. If you wanted to express that thought in my youth, other words beginning with B would be far more common. Naturally I found them as odious then as I would now.
What? Gay always meant happy, jolly etc. it was repurposed and gets weird if used by its original meaning.
My good man, how queer! Just means ‘quite odd’, sounds very old fashioned, but never ever meant anything else.
What a gay day!
Gay meant happy. Then it was used as a perjorative to infantilise homosexuals in part to justify medical and judicial intervention. It was later reclaimed and has its current usage.
They still use “bugger” in the UK, which is basically the same thing but for gay people.
For years I thought “bugger” just means “to annoy” or something like that, so I would say things like “This buggers me” or “You don’t have to get so buggered about it.”
Boy am I embarrassed…
Kind of? Like you could call a child a “little bugger” and that would just be calling them annoying rather than an arse fucker
Once I used it like that at work, everyone was surprised, and so I looked it up after. I’m actually dead now. This is my ghost typing.
Well, there was one episode of South Park about people who annoy you…
I’ve never encountered that word used with a homophobic intent, as far as I could tell. If you wanted to express that thought in my youth, other words beginning with B would be far more common. Naturally I found them as odious then as I would now.
Doesn’t matter, the word is rooted in homophobic intent.
So is “gay”. Language evolves. Being a linguistic originalist would be a hard and eccentric hill to die on.
What? Gay always meant happy, jolly etc. it was repurposed and gets weird if used by its original meaning. My good man, how queer! Just means ‘quite odd’, sounds very old fashioned, but never ever meant anything else. What a gay day!
Gay meant happy. Then it was used as a perjorative to infantilise homosexuals in part to justify medical and judicial intervention. It was later reclaimed and has its current usage.
Well good I’m glad the UK has abandoned that principle, it was getting a bit pretentious.