Languages change. Moron, idiot and imbecile used to be medical terms. Gay used to simply mean happy and excited. A fag used to be a term for a cigarette.
I really doubt it would have appeared in a mainstream children’s book if it were seen as at all offensive.
Words like “bugger” and “damn” used to be extremely offensive curses. Now they’re often used as very mild expressions of annoyance to avoid using the serious ones.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
DamienGramatacus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Weren’t idiot, moron and imbecile medical terms specifically used by white scientists to describe black people back in the good old eugenics days of the 1920’s America? Language changes sure but it often has very racist roots.
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I’ve never heard anything about it having a racial component.
DamienGramatacus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moron_(psychology)?wprov=sf…
Moron is a term once used in psychology and psychiatry to denote mild intellectual disability.[1] The term was closely tied with the American eugenics movement.[2] Once the term became popularized, it fell out of use by the psychological community, as it was used more commonly as an insult than as a psychological term. It is similar to imbecile and idiot.[3]
Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org 22 hours ago
Once the term became popularized, it fell out of use by the psychological community, as it was used more commonly as an insult than as a psychological term.
Any term for something that is likely to be a target of scorn or mockery has this problem unless it’s so bloodless, detached and clinical that it is effectively only usable as medical jargon and barely has any meaning outside that context. George Carlin once did a bit on this.
Related is how therapy language seems to increasingly be seeping into literally everything.
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Eugenics was related to racism, but it wasn’t the same thing as racism.
The intellectual ability / disability axis of eugenics was completely different from its skin colour axis.
the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Buggery used to be a crime, now it’s a gay way to spend an afternoon
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 hours ago
I wonder if straight people were ever convicted of buggery with he opposite sex? I wouldn’t be surprised if “buggery” existed solely to persecute homosexuals back then.
(I was gonna say “non-straight” or “queer” but “homosexuals” read in 30’s English accent sounded funnier to me in my head)
the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
Found one example in the Wikipedia article about the buggery act of 1533, though it seems like he deserved it. I’m not clear if he was actually convicted.
In July 1540, Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury, was charged with treason for harbouring a known member of the Pilgrimage of Grace movement. He was also accused of buggery, as he was suspected of raping his own daughter. Hungerford was beheaded at Tower Hill,[6] on 28 July 1540, the same day as Thomas Cromwell.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 hours ago
Oh, that’s dark D: Rapists for sure deserve whatever extra harsh punishments can possibly be doled out, so that part’s cool at least. But yeah, other than that then, seems like historically it’s pretty much just to condemn gay peeps. D:
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Sodomy used to be a common add on charge in sexual assault cases. I don’t know if it was ever used outside that context other than to harass gay people. I assume buggery was used the same way.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 hours ago
Good on adding more charges to sexual assault.
Boo on using any charges to harass gay peeps D:
merc@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
Nice one.
gerryflap@feddit.nl 1 day ago
Exactly. I started reading The Fellowship of the Ring again, and it takes some getting used to that “queer” is used in a completely different way than nowadays.
the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Queer is a strange one for me, growing up it was a straight up offensive slur for gay people but now the LGBTQ community has embraced it hard enough to give it its own letter.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
As a Gen Xer, same. I still don’t like using the word due to the negative connotation it used to have.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 hours ago
I’m 40; “queer” was definitely off-limits and felt very wrong when I was young and absolutely, unquestionably straight. I don’t know when it changed for me, maybe the 2010s?… but now it has zero negative vibes in my mind.
Perhaps my acceptance around that time that I am, and have always been, quite queer was responsible for that change in my life.
the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
Yeah, same. It still feels as weird and wrong as the f word or the n word.
zjti8eit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 hours ago
I thought Q was for questioning.
Maybe i’m too old, but when I was a kid it just meant different, like the family down the street is rather queer, or we played a game where someobody in the classroom would change one thing, like take off their sweater and when you opened your eyes you had to identify which kid was queer
the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
I’ve always heard it as “queer”, and the definition of queer has morphed since then from simply “gay” to “someone whose gender is not easy to define”, or sometimes as an umbrella term for anyone covered by the other letters. The whole thing is rather confusing. I’m content to just treat them like any other people.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
daggermoon@piefed.world 20 hours ago
This is from South Africa in the year 2000. It just means unusual in this context.
fartographer@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
“Bah humbug,” was that era’s equivalent of Scrooge wandering around saying, “whatever, bullshit.”
SaraTonin@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Enid Blyton used it a surprising amount. But she was also considered old-fashioned and racist by critics at the time, so…
FishFace@piefed.social 1 day ago
Fag still is a term for a cigarette…
starik@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Yeah, but only in old-timey countries, like England.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I had always heard that it originally meant a stick to be used for kindling and was adapted to smoking once the tobacco trade was a thing. Probably complete horseshit because no internet when I was a kid, but I never bothered to look it up.
FishFace@piefed.social 1 day ago
A faggot originally meant a bundle of sticks or twigs, and they were used to light fires, but I don’t think this has any relation to “fag” as in cigarette. Etymonline says of the latter:
That meaning of faggot, interestingly, comes from the same root as the Roman symbol “fasces” which is a bundle of sticks from which we get the modern word fascism.
Another fun fact: there’s a traditional British dish called faggots which are a kind of meatball made from offal, somewhat similar to haggis but uncased.
ThunderQueen@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I always knew fascists were a bunch of fags
[im a gay tranny, relax]