To use the word “queer”?

[BowermansNose]

A few times recently I’ve found myself wanting to use the word “queer” to describe something odd or unusual (in the original sense of the word). I don’t know if I’m being influenced by some novels I’ve read of whatever. My parents also have an expression “up Queer Street”.

However, I’m obviously aware of the other meaning that relates to sexuality, and it has had pejorative connotations.

AIBU to use “queer” in the original sense?

I wouldn't use the word.

BertrandRussell

Glad you're not offended - none was intended. I was just genuinely wondering why somebody would choose his name as a username, I didn't say (or meant to suggest) that you were wrong to do so.

or mean to suggest

Winston Churchill. Voted greatest Briton of all time in 2002. Wanted forced sterilisation of the 'unfit' and forced labour camps for 'mental defectives'.

I'm likely to be flamed here, but I have never liked Churchill one bit. If you were a posh, privileged, white British (or possibly American) male with the right connections and similar elitist views, he was probably a great guy to know.

All the rest of us, OTOH, especially if you had the sheer audacity to be born Indian....

I'm likely to be flamed here, but I have never liked Churchill one bit. If you were a posh, privileged, white British (or possibly American) male with the right connections and similar elitist views, he was probably a great guy to know.

Off topic, but the thing about "Great" people is that they don't necessarily have to be nice people. Despite all his flaws, anyone who can win a Nobel prize for literature and lead Britain in WW2, where overall, he made the right call, against probably most of his party, and much of the country to fight Nazism, is undoubtedly "great".

Isn't it then good to re-appropriate queer as a normal everyday word?

I've never seen the need to re-appropriate it as it's never actually been 'lost' anywhere - it's just one of thousands of ordinary words in the English language.

Phrases like 'Make America Great Again', 'Britain First' and 'English Defence League' carry with them some very odious connotations in their specific contexts and represent some very offensive beliefs and ideologies; but individually, the phrases are just made up of 9 common innocuous words which nobody would dream of stopping using in other everyday contexts.

If a TV Olympics commentator said "And that gold in the swimming has just put Britain first again in the medals table", would anybody be sitting at home shocked and accusing Hazel Irvine of being an appalling racist?

the thing about "Great" people is that they don't necessarily have to be nice people. Despite all his flaws, anyone who can win a Nobel prize for literature and lead Britain in WW2, where overall, he made the right call, against probably most of his party, and much of the country to fight Nazism, is undoubtedly "great".

Oh, I agree that plenty of people rightly hailed as great aren't or don't have to be nice; but Churchill was in another league entirely. Below is a link to just one of many dissenters to his 'greatness'.

Nobel prizes aren't always without controversy either: wasn't it Tom Lehrer who declared that political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was given the Nobel Peace Prize?

Harold Shipman went to great efforts to ensure that his wife was provided for and protected after his own death, but being a kind, considerate husband hardly counteracts the terrible things that he did and earns him the epithet of 'great' (in any kind of positive understanding).

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/winston-churchill-genocide-dictator-shashi-tharoor-melbourne-writers-festival-a7936141.html

I've never seen the need to re-appropriate it as it's never actually been 'lost' anywhere - it's just one of thousands of ordinary words in the English language.

What I've picked up a little from this thread though, is that is has been lost to some as a normal word. I don't know why this is. I posted a graph from google showing its use in books - essentially, its use starts to increase from about the early 1990s, which I would attribute to its links with LGBQT.

I'm not some old gimmer, but I was born in 1979, so for me, I learnt the word growing up, and to this day, I read books, some of which were written over a stretch of time, and I retain it as a fairly normal word. That may not be the case for everyone.

Perhaps not so far in the future, they'll say they were feeling a bit sick, and someone will pick them up for using fuddy-duddy language, because as everyone knows, sick means great (I think).

I still used it in the original sense.
I do remember when it was used as an insult used about and towards homosexuals but not for a long time.In that sense it has moved on too and the Q in LGBTQ is more to do with gender than sexuality.
The last time I used the word no one stopped to debate what the word meant but caught me as I passed out.

Not wishing to flog a dead horse, but I just started to read Toni Morrison’s Beloved. I’m reading a forward she wrote for the 2004 international edition.

In the second paragraph, page 1, she writes “the question of priorities - how can you edit and write at the same time - seemed to me both queer and predictable”.

If it’s good enough for a Nobel Prize winner, then it’s good enough for me.

Sorry, foreword, not forward

😂

Genuine question: those who think we can't use "queer" to mean odd because it's been used as an insult, would you be troubled by someone referring to a female dog as a bitch? Why or why not?

Just say odd.
Why would you want to use it if not to be controversial?

Because she's desperate to show how well read she is and wants everyone to know it.

If it’s good enough for a Nobel Prize winner, then it’s good enough for me.

Are you a Nobel Prize winner?

And you taking about indending to use the term for the foreword of any kind of international edition or in colloquial speech?

However, I do notice when people impart a tone when saying the word 'bitch' in the proper way, a kind of gleeful malice at getting to use a verboten word without censure. But I am sensitive to little things like that.

Me too.

I suppose I just don’t see it as a controversial word. I do think it’s odd to not use words because people might misinterpret them. And I don’t find reading something to show off about

Just say odd.
Why would you want to use it if not to be controversial?

Because it's just a word like thousands of others.

As we've already said, I wouldn't hesitate to describe a piece of metal or wood that has become misshapen as 'bent', because I'm a native English speaker and that's a perfectly standard English word to describe it. Why would I stop to consider whether it can have another, much less common slang meaning, whether that meaning may be seen to apply to another random person, whether a person to whom some may apply that word might happen to be within earshot and whether that person would assume I was somehow referring to them and choose to take offence.

In the same way, many people will refer to 'watching the TV' meaning viewing the television. TV is sometimes used as a derogatory slur for transvestites/cross dressers, but it doesn't mean that we should assume malevolent intent and that somebody is talking about staring at an unconventional dresser when using a normal abbreviation to refer to a normal everyday thing. Why on earth would you?

Just because you may only know of one meaning for a word (or your mind automatically goes there), that doesn't mean that the word doesn't have other innocent, common meanings which you may not be familiar with or think to use as part of your own normal vocabulary.

You may just as well choose to be offended if you overhear Germans having a conversation and one refers to their Grossvater - a very ordinary German word - because you assume that everything other people say, regardless of the context, is all about you and that they're therefore somehow accusing you personally of regularly breaking foul-smelling wind.

Not rtft just bits yabu

Sound like my granny (long dead) who complained that the word gay had been 'ruined'.

However, I do notice when people impart a tone when saying the word 'bitch' in the proper way, a kind of gleeful malice at getting to use a verboten word without censure.

Some people might, but not everybody. I'm sure a dog breeder or vet wouldn't think twice before using a very common profession-related word, much less snigger at the fact that it might sound rude to some in an entirely different context.

Do you also think that plumbers just stand around all day at the merchant's saying 'nipple' and 'ball cock' and rolling about like Beavis & Butthead rather than just nonchalantly ordering the parts they need to enable them to get on and do their mundane work?

Because she's desperate to show how well read she is and wants everyone to know it.

Most people just use words to communicate and really aren't trying to impress people with their choice of words. If some are better read or have otherwise been exposed to and/or developed a wider vocabulary then this will just come naturally to them - a 6'6" man doesn't take long strides for the sole purpose of showing off to petite women that he is much taller.

There are countless other legitimate reasons for criticising the likes of Jacob RM or Boris Johnson, but their speech and language shouldn't be one of them as these are simply a result of their upbringings and education and just what's normal for them. Wouldn't you be more suspicious of their motives if they started talking like Danny Dyer instead?