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 always took it to mean that Kirsty was yelling ‘ya cheap loudly faggot’ as a spiteful gay slur because he was impotent due to drink. Merry Christmas, me arse!

If you read the lyrics it is absolutely a term to insult. Any other interpretation is just not correct and makes no sens what so ever. Doesn't matter if it is used affectionately in some contexts with Irish Granny, in this song it is an insult as part of an exchange which accuses one of being a 'bum' 'a punk' 'an old slut on junk' and the other as 'scumbag' 'maggot'. The next line saying 'cheap lousy faggot' isn't suddenly affectionate, isn't about meat balls, sticks or a little ribbing between drunks.
Not sure why people are trying to reinvent facts. It doesn't reflect any view, it depicts a drunken argument which involve slurs, and which, I would say, Shane had seen plenty of in his life.

He never admitted that was the reason for that insult, if it was. But it's definitely plausible because he did hint in other songs about addiction ruining performance, so to speak.

Recently?

It was well-known to be offensive when I was a child. I'm 48.

The NYPD choir was a slang term used in the the Irish Bars for when officers got pissed up and started to sing in the Bar. Often of Irish descent they would sing songs like Galway Bay. He wrote the song after a period of frequenting the bars of NY. This is what he was referring to.

My Grandad called me a faggot my whole life and I'm 100% sure it was nothing to do with gays or sticks.

He was literally calling me a meatball, usually because I'd said something a bit dim. Nobody in the UK in the 70's used the term for gay people.

I call my child a sausage pretty much every day with the exact same energy.

Fingers crossed that's not a future term for anything sensitive because I'd honestly struggle to stop using the term!

People our age don't use it though, do they?

Older people though? 100% Mr Brains based!

The song has been changed for air play so I have no idea why people continue to argue about it.

First thing that springs to mind is some sort of offal you wouldn’t want to eat.

Braggart would have fitted it almost as well and people wouldn't have had to have this argument over and over again.
Irish people of my parents generation were fast and loose with the insults. I heard the word 'hoor' (which means whore) for many years before I was old enough to know what it meant.

I thought the NYPD choir were the drunks in the holding cells.

Same here. Also remember bugger being used in the same way. Apologies if I can't find a citation to hand but my oral history will have to do.

Off topic but we use hoor (hooa) in Northumberland. I never knew other areas used it.

The word Faggot (as a unit) highlighted in the wiki article that @AthWat posted means a bundle of sticks, for kindling.
Kindling (faggot) is something you burn to make a fire.

In American history, I have heard that the word faggot started so to be used as a homophobic slur against gay people, suggesting a 'faggot' a gay person, should be burned or thrown into a fire. I.e. They should be kindling.
So that makes it a very real and cruel slur.

In England meanwhile,we historically used the word 'fag' as a short version of 'faggot', since a cigarette is also something you burn, like kindling.

This. People seem to have forgotten the original use of some words, which is a shame. It’s hilarious though when my elderly Mum sometimes calls me a Slut over my housekeeping (or lack of it in her opinion) and I see my friends look horrified 🤣

Dubliner here. It was a term that was used to slag men and was homophobic yes. We still sing it here so we don't ignore our homophobic past in music.

It's pathetic. I have the original, uncensored song on my phone, and I always play it at Christmas as part of my playlist. I'm a gay man. I hope other people can enjoy it too realising this song isn't a homophobic slur. I've never been called a faggot either. Some of my friends have said fag, but I find it endearing.

On the other hand, I find queer extremely offensive, but the community has brought that word back to them, so yeah.

I’d still use fag to mean cigarette and I’d never use it to mean “gay man” and the meaning would be obvious from the context. Eg “she was just smoking fags and doing nothing”.

I’d personally never say faggot because in my experience it’s only ever offensive. But it’s obviously very regional and I wouldn’t dream of telling people who’ve experienced its use as an inoffensive term that they’re remembering wrong or that their (highly respected) dictionary is poor 🙄

It's another name for a meatball. Don't talk about people's poor dictionary, and certainly don't try to tell people what they should, or should not find offensive.

Long time ago, before West London became trust fund heaven, I passed a rough old pub, the KPH, on my way home. It was about 20 minutes past closing time and a drunken and unconscious woman lay on the doorstep, bleeding from a head wound. I called an ambulance and, while waiting, her husband turned up, equally drunk. He booted her in the ribs and began shouting a tirade of insults at her that would not be out of place in FONY. None of it was flattering or showed concern. Had his wife been in a state to respond, I expect she would have returned similar. I think of this couple whenever I hear FONY, written about them and millions of other couples with tongues untrammelled by Christmas drink. Rewriting history and language is a dangerous practice. Let writers write.

Although not written as a gay slur, nor sung as such, Kirsty was herself aware of the way the line was being weaponised and changed it the last few times she sang it live to “you’re cheap and you’re haggard”.
That’s all there is to say about her iconic song.

Anyway, who is doing a Christmas Eve box for their DC this year? And will their stockings come from 'Father Christmas' or 'Santa'?

Seriously?! I've only ever heard of faggots in older novels, are they really still sold and what's actually in them? 'offal' is pretty vague as a description

I think it’s silly when we are told to refrain from using words that have been given a new, offensive meaning.

I know someone called Gay (in her 70s), is she still allowed to used her own name?
My Nan used to say queer all the time. It means odd.

Gotta love an invitation to post all the slurs you don't normally get to use, all while maintaining a wide-eyed innocence 🙄

I bet you loved to talk about bloody noses in front of your teacher, wearing a silly smirk and thinking you were incredibly clever 🙄