Comment on #ThinkBig
Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 6 days agoI get this - and I really hope that changes in the same way (just like bitch or gay).
It’s weird tho that that word lost the meaning of bundled sticks, while gay/gaily & bitch still retained their older usage.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 days ago
It actually didn’t lose the meaning of a bundle of sticks. That’s why I view it as a death threat. The bundle of sticks is kindling used to burn people at the stake.
Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 6 days ago
Oh fuck.
I didn’t know that.
Stamets@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Well, luckily you can continue on without knowing that because it’s a myth. @Kolanaki@pawb.social is not the only one who believes this, I did up until a couple of years ago, but it luckily isn’t true.
The F word does mean bundle of sticks, this is true. But it wasn’t applied to homosexuals due to being burnt at the stake. The term ‘Fslur-Gatherer’ was someone that collected the sticks to be bundled and were often women. The theory is that it was born out from gay men being referred to as feminine. The other option is that it was saying that someone was a burden because a bundle of sticks is awkward to carry. There isn’t any complete proof of that, but it’s the most logical step as to where it came from. However we can completely rule out the burning at the stake as to why the term was used for two main reasons.
First is that while homosexuals were burnt at the stake, that was in the middle ages and centuries removed from the slur being used to mean homosexuals. However the slur when it was initially coming into language never had any death penalty connotations to it. It was just a slur that was used derogatively but there isn’t any evidence that it was used in relation to death specifically. The second is that the term grew in popularity in the UK but England and the colonies had never used being burnt as the stake as a punishment for homosexuals.
It’s a convincing urban legend, but an urban legend nonetheless.
Etymology Online page for the word.
Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 5 days ago
That was in interesting read, thx!