• ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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      3 days ago

      So is “gay”. Language evolves. Being a linguistic originalist would be a hard and eccentric hill to die on.

      • waz@feddit.uk
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        8 hours ago

        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!

        • ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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          8 hours ago

          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.

      • yucandu@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Being a linguistic originalist would be a hard and eccentric hill to die on.

        Well good I’m glad the UK has abandoned that principle, it was getting a bit pretentious.