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[Rain]

I propose that certain varieties of gay speech should be endorsed (if not outright made co-official) languages of the Gay Homeland.  I suggest the endorsement of Polari from London's gay community and Faggish from New York's.  

Both are quite similar in many ways...but Polari is an actual literary vehicle with a small but expanding dictionary. Faggish (sometimes referred to as "Linguash" or "the Queen's English") has  sporadically gone on to influence American English by transmitting certain words and idiomatic phrases ("you got served", as in the movie about breakdancers...the term is a Faggish idiom used in the ballroom scene and borrowed by breakdancers).  Faggish is not yet a literary language.  It does, however, have a rich and expanding musical output being the main vernacular for the ballroom scene and for various house music songs (i.e. "Do You Speak the Queen's English" by Joey Rolon).

Both also employ coded rhyming slangs.  London's Polari uses the Cockney rhyming slang of the East End.  Faggish uses two mutually intelligible forms of a pig Latin-based rhyming slang...one version is predominantly used by the African-American gay community, the other by the Puerto Rican and Dominican gay community.

BTW...for those who want to know...I speak Faggish fluently.  I have also set about expanding the vocabulary of Faggish and resurrecting some words that had died out (like "carta"...the face, or "ling"...when something's done to overkill...like this post...ha ha ha).  I was not at all suprised to learn this about myself either:

I speak New Yorkese.

***Your Linguistic Profile:***


50% General American English

35% Yankee

10% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

[Feral]

Your Linguistic Profile:



50% General American English

20% Upper Midwestern

15% Yankee

10% Midwestern

0% Dixie

Well, duh. Though don't tell too many people that my incomprehensible accent is "Midwestern." Midwesterners especially have difficulty understanding it. (That would be, I very strongly suspect, because I'm prone to using words like 'incomprehensible.')

I loved this bit:

What do you call a traffic situation in which several roads meet in a circle and you have to get off at a certain point?

That would be.... a figment of your imagination. Roads do not do this. They meet at tidy right angles, just the two of them at a time. Of course, from time to time there are insane roads that really ought to be ripped out that meet an otherwise tidy intersection at a forty-five degree angle (usually without crossing it). That would be called "that stupid intersection that ought to be ripped out."

[Rain]

I'm still waiting for berto to take this test.  Even if letters of the alphabet are not part of the questionnaire.

[Rain]

That would be.... a figment of your imagination. Roads do not do this.

No...there are a few famous examples of roads converging onto a cricular "roundabout", to use a British term. Piccadilly Circus in London is one of them.  The other is the Place de l'Étoile (Place Charles de Gaulle) in Paris.  In NYC we have Columbus Circle which has a strange assortment of streets that do not so much radiate out from it, but just seem to coalesce there in no particularly orderly way (a perennial source of indignation for all New York drivers).

[berto]

No...there are a few famous examples of roads converging onto a cricular "roundabout", to use a British term.

The semi-notorious "Confusion Corner"

[Feral]

That would be.... a figment of your imagination. Roads do not do this.

No...there are a few famous examples of roads converging onto a cricular "roundabout", to use a British term.  Piccadilly Circus in London is one of them.  The other is the Place de l'Étoile (Place Charles de Gaulle) in Paris.  In NYC we have Columbus Circle which has a strange assortment of streets that do not so much radiate out from it, but just seem to coalesce there in no particularly orderly way (a perennial source of indignation for all New York drivers).

Yes, yes, yes... these savage and chaotic places do indeed encumber themselves with such monstrosities. The squares in Savanah with their byzantine yield/right of way rules might well be another example.

Where I come from, such things do not occur at all. They may even be illegal. Lots of things that are common-place in the East (and in many parts of the world) just can't be in the Mid-West. Houses that abut each other (I hear they call those things 'terraces' in the UK and what's more, they date back to before the middle ages)... against the building codes. Trees anywhere near an intersection where they might block someone's view of oncoming traffic (so common  where I live now that I think they must have been required by ordinance at some point in the past)... liable to be cut down by city employees without notice or compensation (to the contrary -- a fine may well be in the offing).

Nope... while they have such meetings of many roads in savage, chaotic, and blessedly distant lands, the place of my birth is free of them. Many of the less well-traveled denizens would require photographic evidence of the existence of such things, and then they might well suggest that said evidence has been photo-shopped. It goes without saying that the local dialect has no word for this thing that cannot exist.

[berto]

gawd... I've fallen in love with Feral, KT and Rain, based on language alone...

Am I ill?

[Feral]

yes

[Rain]

yes!

[Rain]

No...there are a few famous examples of roads converging onto a cricular "roundabout", to use a British term.

I'm laughing hysterically...and if you were Puerto Rican, you would know why.  I just realized that I mispelled "circular" as "cricular".  The word "crica" is a Puerto Rican vernacular for "vagina".  While I was typing that entry I was downloading this:



A freudian slip, no doubt.

[Rain]

Many of the less well-traveled denizens would require photographic evidence of the existence of such things, and then they might well suggest that said evidence has been photo-shopped.

This picture was found on a site appropriately enough entitled:  The Mysteries of Columbus.  This particular arrangement of streets remains a mystery to all New Yorkers to this day, deviating as it does from modern Manhattan's rigid grid pattern for no reason at all.  One street defies all logic in New York...Broadway.  But that's out of tradition and convention.  It was originally an Algonquin footpath prior to European settlement and was maintained as the main route to the hinterlands by the early Dutch and, later, the English.  Broadway continues it's strange bisecting diagonal course across the island to this day.  The beauty of it is that its transcepts form some of NY's best-known intersections (Times, Herald, Union Squares among them).

The other day I went downtown to that part of the city that dates to the time before the modern grid pattern was laid out.  I was shocked, amused, and a little thankful to see that the city has seen fit to add to the further confusion of the colonial jumble of streets below 14th Street by adding new and very European-looking traffic islands for buses.  For some odd reason, those islands actually look like they should have always been part of the plan.  The streets below 14th Street are more akin to the European model than to the orderly quilts of American towns and cities.  I was once informed that back in the days of streetcars (we call them "trolleys" or "trams" here in NY) the city had plenty of traffic islands.  They were all ripped out when the trams were banished in favor of buses. 

By the way (and I know berto's gonna love this), the Los Angeles Dodgers trace their name back to New York's early trolley line system..."trolley dodger" being the nickname given to Brooklynites by other city dwellers because of the large number of trolley lines that ran through that borough.  So, when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to L.A. they effectively took a name with them that has absolutely no connection with their new home.

[Feral]

I'm laughing hysterically...and if you were Puerto Rican, you would know why.  I just realized that I mispelled "circular" as "cricular".  The word "crica" is a Puerto Rican vernacular for "vagina".
...
A freudian slip, no doubt.

Oh? And here I thought you were describing the shape. You know... a cricular road.

Freudian, huh? If that's your story and you're sticking to it, I shall take you at your word.

[Rain]

Ahh...I also misspelled "misspell".  Spell checker, please!  But then again, English is not the easiest of languages to spell.  And those divergences between the Brit and Yank norms are enough to send any level-headed person to drink...notice all the alcoholics amongst the languages' literary greats.

No...I intended to use "circular".  Cricular would have done nicely, I suppose.  However, it was the sudden shock of seeing Britney's shaved twat that impelled my brain toward what is considered one of the filthiest words in Caribbean Spanish.  So rude and sobering was the shock.  I have to admit that I had never seen that particular piece of hairless cunt before...never really having cared for Ms. Spears in the least.  But an online discussion with a friend about her MTV Video Awards performance prompted him to email me said snatch.  I downloaded her hairless one-eyed cat for the benefit of my bf who has rather plebian tastes.

And, yes...that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[vanrozenheim]

Ahem, you guys stick on topic in this thread? :wink:

Whatever the future lingua franca on the territory under Gay sovereignty will be, it should be sufficiently easy to learn for all those not native speakers. IDO have been suggested previously, but some simplified variety of English isn't out of question either. From a more practical viewpoint, at this time in history, English is used among writers, avctivists and all kinds of skilled workers for global communication.

One can hardly impose a language upon an entire population against the will of its constituents. One can, however, create conditions under which the use of a particular language is stronly supported. Let's assume that IDO were the official language, than the government can prescribe that citizenship may only be acquired by individuals who passed the exam. Or government can impose a general value-added tax of 25% for books but exempt those in IDO from taxation.

The Japanese were facing a similar problem when they strived to educate general population in written Japanese. There were too many Kanji's to learn and an ordinary person was hardly able to read the newspaper or official communication without a dictionary. They solved the problem by issuing a list of "official" Kanji's (some 2,500) and strongly recommended the newspapers and government officials not to use any Kanji's not on the list. The result was that citizens are able now to partake in the public life, but also letting scholars and literati to use anything they wish.

GHF's customary law includes so far:

1) The opinion of Master Feral on the proper capitalization of names of peoples;
2) The opinion of Master Vicky on the depricated use of "MSM" for Gay and Bisexulal men.

Beyound that, anyone is using anything resembling English to the best of his abilities.  :wink: Use of words from other languages is encouraged, if they are best suitable to describe something which has no name in English.

Some thughts on the issue can be found also on GHF's Forum.

[Feral]

Oh yes... the names of peoples and nations are properly capitalized in English. Gays are a people. The only proper excuse for writing 'gay' without a capital letter would be if one means "happy and light-hearted." There are, after all, many gay Gays (as well as the usual crop of surly, bitchy ones).

"Imposing" language upon people is at once an immensely difficult and utterly simple prospect. Sure... people resist such things. Resistance, however, is futile (did I just type that?) Language is an instrument of usage. There are any number of hideous neologisms and malapropisms that I have railed against for decades now... all to no avail. Take, for instance, that ever-popular American "carrot and stick." The classic illustration of the phrase "carrot on a stick" is of a donkey pulling a cart being ridden by a boy. This clever lad bears a short pole, from which dangles a nice, tasty carrot, and he induces the donkey to pull the cart by dangling the carrot just beyond the creature's reach. The boy is not going to strike the donkey, he is only bribing the donkey. Actually, he is cheating the poor beast, since the carrot will perpetually be just out of reach, no matter what the donkey does. Think of it as the usual hijinx the Democratic Party gets up to every time they want money and votes -- the carrot dangles from a stick. Any sensible donkey would decline to pull the cart under these circumstances, but donkeys are not sensible.

Alas, there is also that oh-so-American notion of "speak softly but carry a big stick." Americans love their big sticks. It's not such bad advice.

Somehow, the 'carrot ON a stick' has become a 'carrot AND a stick.' The poor donkey is no longer cheated... he is offered one carrot in exchange for pulling the cart, and if he declines the offer (which really is much too low), then he gets whacked with the stick. I have long felt that if this sort of gangster-like activity really is common enough to merit entering the English language as a catch-phrase, then some clever person ought to make up one. There's neither call nor need to go mangling perfectly good and long accepted sayings.

Times change, language changes, and there's very little anyone can do about it.

Usage is king.

If there is something Gays wish to say in a 'Gay' way, then let them do so. If people wish to understand what is being said, then they will learn the new words. The trick is... if one wishes to BE understood, it's generally wise to use the old ones. You have to stop caring if you're not generally understood to employ argot effectively. That, after all, was the entire point of Polari... to not be understood by those who did not understand. There is a place for such behavior. Most every social group, no matter how small, deploys its own special jargon to confound the uninitiated.