using the word 'gay' as an insult

[Kasz216]

Rath said:

zexen_lowe said:

stof said:
I can think of no greater barometer of a person's immaturity than their use of the word gay as an insult. Find someone who says "that's gay" and low and behold, they are incredibly immature.

I agree, it's not like it's increidibly insulting, it's just that there's no reason at all to use it and you have a thousand of other words you can perfectly use without having to misuse a word. Even if gay before meant happy, now it does not. Words change meaning all the time, it happens.

 

Now, if anyone says "that's so gay", I'm not gonna call people with burning torches saying "he's homophobe, burn him!", but I will think the word was misused and that the one who said it has an increidibly limited vocabulary

So you claim that the word can change from meaning 'happy' to 'homosexual', but cannot possibly change from 'homosexual' to 'bad'. How is one of these changes misuse and the other proper use?

Actually gay didn't go from meaning happy to homosexual.

 

It went from "Happy" to "Excessivly Happy."  to "Hedonistic without any care of morals as youth."  to "Hedonistic without any care of morals as a negative."  to "Hedonistic without any case of morals as confined only to homosexual acts."  to "Gay."

 

As you can see... the evolution of a word is a varied and long chain of events.

This "change" however wasn't done in the usual gradual sense of the word... but instead done rather abruptly because homosexuality is seen as bad.

It completly jumped the usual process specifically from it's originators to belittle a group.

 

For example... what would be the reaction if the greater world started calling anything stupid Black, or in your case New Zealend.

If everything stupid was suddenly called New Zealend?  You New Zealenders wouldn't be offended?