You scumbag You maggot you cheap lousy…

[TeaAndToast8]

My second AIBU Of the night, husbands being very argumentative! Anyway, I’ve screenshot two examples of what the Kirsty MacColl might have meant in Fairy Tale of NewYork. Who is correct.. My opinion is the description underlined in red and my husband’s is blue.

I didn't mention England?

Yes but now it's an insult. Thankyou for not using it now 😊

Yes, we just don't call people fags but I'm guessing you know that?

That wasn’t the question.

How is calling a cigarette a fag the same as calling a gay man a fag. Last time I looked gay men were not cigarettes.

Do you mean Shane? He was born in Kent to Irish parents which is why I said the band was British and Irish.

And again THIS

Where? I've never ever heard this.

Yes I know that, I never used it for people in the first place.

This thread has made me really fancy a fag now

It’s actually an Irish folk ballad and references NY but it isn’t an American song. Written by Irish and English artists and recorded in London.

No one that I knew at that time used the word faggot as any kind of slur in the UK. You used faggots to light a bonfire or you ate them.

@InterruptingRabbit

Yes sorry my predictive text, I was surprised to find out he was born and raised in England.

Who's "we"? Are you Irish then? I can't say "faggot" never meant a lazy person in Ireland but it certainly never, ever did in England. And I'm not sure the Irish have a stronger claim to own the English language than the Americans.

It doesn't make sense that she calls him a faggot in the homophobic sense with the rest of the words.

It certainly did mean lazy in northern England/borders region.

Many things are now considered offensive that were once acceptable, most of literature for example, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for them with the right context.

It’s not offensive in the way you think it is as already mentioned by others it refers to being bone idle or lazy.

You do realise that The Pogues had a guitarist who was openly gay?

Philip Chevron (Philip Ryan).

You will now have to make a grovelling apology to your husband!

When my young friend in his 20s was beaten up in Manchester a couple of years ago, they were shouting faggot as they stomped on his head and kicked him in his ribs. And every Christmas he has to hear people defend their use of the word to the death.

Regardless of what the word once meant, it now means something different, and can be really distressing for people to hear.

Going by the standard of “old slut on junk” I’d go with option one.

Tbf I don’t think she was disputing that it’s a slur. I think she was saying that it’s not offensive when used to describe a cigarette. Just like how supermarkets can sell faggots without being accused of homophobia.

Or how you might refer to a ditch as a dyke. Or drive past a yellow field and say that rape is beautiful (name comes from the Latin for turnip). Or call a dog a bitch.

I don’t use fag when talking about cigarettes, but since I don’t smoke and I don’t know anyone who smokes, this doesn’t really mean much since I barely ever say cigarette anyway. But in my head, for a reason I can’t explain, I see it as not really ok. But I don’t think it’s particularly unreasonable for someone else to say, no, I’m using its other meaning and I’m not being offensive.

Got any citations?

it meant lazy when I was a child growing up in the West Midlands.

Of course it does. It was a slur at the time because calling someone gay was considered derogatory.

Not buying it unless anyone can show me some proof.

My mam when I was growing up lol

How come all dictionaries I can find list all the other, old, non derogatory meanings but not that one?

My mum used to say ' you're a bugger up back' she had absolutely no idea 🥴