Added: Jul 22, 2008
From: s1wz
Duration: 0:38
london Cartoon from Punch magazine in 1857 illustrating the use of "gay" as a euphemism for being a prostitute. One woman says to the other (who looks glum), "how long have you been gay?" The poster on the wall is for La Traviata, an opera about a courtesan..0.The primary meaning of the word gay changed during the 20th century. The earlier primary usage, "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy," derives via the Old French gai, most likely from a Germanic source. "Gay" was very commonly used with this meaning in speech and literature. For example, the 1938 ballet aptly named Gaîté Parisienne ("Parisian Gaiety"), a patchwork compiled from Jacques Offenbach's operettas, illustrates this connotation. The optimistic 1890s are still often referred to as the Gay Nineties.The usage of the word "gay" changed mid 20th century and was adopted from the British argot (code language) Polari. The word "gay" used in context to connote "homosexual" allowed for extensive double entendre and innuendo.This practice continued even as late as the 1970s; in a television advertising campaign for the Bic Banana ink crayon, Charles Nelson Reilly sings, "the colors are so bright and gay!" The word "gay" here does double duty, referring both to the brightness of the ink, and as an obvious insider commentary on Reilly himself.Gradually, by the 1990s, "gay" became rarely used for its older meanings, and if it was so used, seemed either dubiously innocent or charmingly antiquated.The derived abstract noun gaiety remains largely free of connotations of sexuality. But "Gaiety" was also a common name for places of entertainment. One of Oscar Wilde's favourite venues in Dublin was the Gaiety Theatre.They were ...gay, they learned little things that are things in being gay, ... they were quite regularly gay. " —Gertrude Stein, 1922o0o
Channel: Travel
Tags: downtown
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