Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

For some reason this discussion of the words gay and retard reminds me of President Obama's Special Olympics gaffe. Often enough there is some cruelty under the surface of humor, even if not intended. Should the kinder folks among us reconsider how we use humor? (Taking some of the “fun” out of it, so to speak?)

Update on the Obama gaffe: Official apologies have been issued for the "thoughtless remark." As politics go, those who like Obama are saying that it was just one of those minor slips that everyone makes from time to time. Those who don't like Obama, such as Sarah Palin, say they were "shocked by the degrading remark." During the election campaign Palin would complain about "gotcha politics" and "gotcha journalism."

Another interesting twist to this story is discussion about why the Tonight Show audience laughed at the remark. In other words, the audience shouldn't have laughed at all, and instead should have been shocked into silence or perhaps even booed the president.

The point of this is not to invite a discussion of politics. But this adds another dimension to a linguistic discussion of controversial words and expressions.

"Festive" has had to work overtime in my vocabulary. My sister has not yet changed her middle name to "festive:" the middle initial G has had to stand alone for decades.

When I gently broached the common meaning of “gay” to my 8th grader last week, he blanched, and stammered, astonished, that “they” had no idea of what they were talking about in using the term.

When you say common meaning, do you mean to say that the happy, bright, and showy kind of gay is actually the common meaning? According to dictionaries that is still the first-listed definition, which implies that it is the most common usage. But then, I can't remember the last time I heard the word gay used in the “common” meaning.” It's almost as if everyone realizes that there is this common meaning, but no one uses it because of the other “less common” meaning. Come to think of it, I would not use the word gay, either, for the same reason. So, regarding your son, it turns out that “they” may not have known about the common meaning of gay, but they sure knew what the common meaning was in their own context. And I would bet that most parents are not using the word gay around their children except when discussing sexual orientation.

I agree with your pecking order comments, but I'm not sure if I agree that when kids use gay meaning “weak, unsuccessful, non-mainstream,” that it has nothing to do with sexuality. In my experience (I've raised kids, too), they are making the very deliberate association of homosexual boys to negative traits like weakness. It's all part of that pecking order process they go through, not to mention the sorting out of their own confusing feelings about sexuality. When I was a young boy we used to call “weak” boys girls or sissies (another word for girls). Homosexuality was not an open topic back then, and it wasn't until I was in high school that I first became aware of its existence. And no, I wasn't unusual. None of the kids I knew were aware of it until high school. Today's kids know all about it, often by the time they start First Grade! Not only that, they are already starting to make fun of it! So boys will call a weak boy gay rather than call him a girl or a sissy.

I remember a discussion I had with one of my boys about this. In fact, I was asking him about using the word gay as a putdown. I told him that when I was a boy the worst thing we could be called was not a girl or a sissy, but “uncoordinated,” which meant bad in sports. Ah, the horrors of being a kid!