Talk:Faggot

Canadian Broadcast Standards Council decision

On 2011-01-13, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, released the results of a complaint, analysis and decision on the use of the word "faggot" in "Money for Nothing" song. It was decided that the song was unacceptable to play on Canadian radio. The full text of that decision is here: http://www.cbsc.ca/english/decisions/2011/110112.php

Please append information about this decision to the section about "Money for Nothing" pradit pheytian

Update for the Television and newsmedia Section

On January 20th, 2011, TV Ontario's (TVO) The Agenda had a very tasteful and thought provoking discussion on the censorship of the word "faggot" (indeed censorship in general) which can give quite a bit of background on the topic if a reader of the article wishes to watch the podcast. The episode page can be found at: http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=779937&ts=2011-01-20%2020:00:00.0. The episode is entitled "The New 'F' Word"

Origin issues

The etymology section should mention the notion of bundles of sticks: in essence, "kindling" (thus, a "flaming" homosexual male). This is evident in "fag" as british slang for cigarrette, and faggot/faggotto as the german and italian (respectively) terms for the musical instrument bassoon, which resembles a bundle of sticks. Faggot as kindling is a very old meaning, attested before the 19th century in the Oxford Englsh Dictionary. As a slang word, there should be a a Folk Etymologies section to contain the plethora of popular guesswork of the word's origins. This would provide an encyclopedically correct venue for popular wisdom many wikipedians want to contribute.

So there's really no connection between 'fagging' in British public schools and the American usage? Let's see... boys, away from home in a single-sex community, with older, adolescent boys demanding 'service' from their pre- and pubescent juniors. Yeah, I'm sure there was nothing going on there. This usage - very common in English literature - doesn't even make the 'Use in Britain' section? How can that be? I'm not adding it in without citations, because it would be OR, but I've certainly seen this explanation for the origin of the term in writing in the past. MarkinBoston (talk) 01:30, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

If you can find a reliable citation for it, put it in. I have a feeling it was mentioned in an earlier version of this article, but removed for being unsupported; articles like this attract unsupported claims. Bear in mind that coincidence is a much more common explanation for similarities between words than people imagine (consider German haben and Latin habere. Both words in Indo-European languages that mean "have", yet the similarity is coincidental). In this particular case we also have the problem that US fag is an abbreviation of faggot, while British fag is not. garik (talk) 03:37, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I was very surprised not to see 'fag' in the public school sense included - if you want a citation, the first volume of Roald Dahl's autobiography Boy has a whole chapter on his experience at Repton in the 20s. Hard to tell how influential this was on the US usage, but certainly a substantial enough parallel to cite. Of course, the article as it stands is quite right to classify 'fag' as an Americanism. As an Australian, I would say fag(got) is certainly more offensive than poof(ter) or quean (depends how pretentious you are, but many pedants would consider the spelling queen and American degeneracy), as it seems to convey a class connotation (I don't know to what extent this could reflect British public school usage, though - only a few eccentric Australians like Tom Wills and Alexander Downer ever copped a British public school experience). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.250.5.248 (talk) 05:12, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Boy is the wrong kind of source to use. It says nothing about the connection of the British term fag with the American term fag(got), and would be an unreliable source if it did. However, I notice that the Online Etymological Dictionary mentions the possibility of a connection, so I've included a mention here too. garik (talk) 06:27, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request from , 22 October 2011

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Not mentioned at all on this page is that the word Faggot is in coomon use in the UK as the name of a food http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(food) Koppert79 (talk) 23:45, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes it is. garik (talk) 00:14, 23 October 2011 (UTC) -And at the top, there's a hatnote-link "For other uses, see Faggot and Fag."  Chzz  ►  00:31, 23 October 2011 (UTC)  Not done

It isn't an Americanism. It's an English word. Almost all words in the English language in use including in the US are therefore "Britishisms". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Morganson691 (talk • contribs) 02:41, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Question about Redirect

• I wanted to mention that the term "fag" actually derives from the Yiddish word "fagala" to refer to a male homosexual. This may have become associated with the term "faggot" with a bundle of firewood, particularly when this term applied to a cigarette and shortened to "fag."
  • Yeah, sure. This is what Zohan says. Lothar Klaic (talk) 21:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
    • Yiddish derives a lot of its vocabulary from German. Fagala is a back formation from there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.228.180.217 (talk) 22:02, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Why does the term "faggotry" redirect to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(slang) instead of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality? I would have thought that someone searching for the term is looking for an explanation of the latter, not the former.Tang Weijun (talk) 08:28, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

If someone wants to know about homosexuality (under any name) and speaks English well enough to understand the article, they're most likely to search for "homosexual" or "homosexuality". If someone searches for "faggotry", I think they want to know what "faggotry" means, and this article is better suited to their needs. garik (talk) 15:12, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not so sure. I often search for terms using their informal names, and expect to read the article to describe the thing itself, not the origin of the term. For example, a search for "church key" takes one to an article on can openers. The reason I am writing is that I was surprised to land on Faggot_(slang), not Homosexuality. Perhaps it would make sense to have a disambiguation page and let the user decide which article he wants. Tang Weijun (talk) 01:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

There is nothing to disambiguate. And the article about homosexuality is just one more mouse click away. And (the non-slang equivalent of) faggotry is not the same as homosexuality. Lothar Klaic (talk) 02:11, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I only know faggotry to mean male homosexuality. What is the non-slang equivalent? Tang Weijun (talk) 02:40, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You got it right: "male homosexuality" is the non-slang equivalent. In wikipedia we separate slang-relelated articles from non-slang ones, for a number of reasons. Lothar Klaic (talk) 19:38, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

In any case, dismayed though you may be that faggotry doesn't link to homosexuality, niggers doesn't link to Black people, and popery doesn't link to Catholicism, it ain't gonna change. garik (talk) 13:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Why are there no faggot pictures?

Most articles have a relevant picture at the top. A faggot model car is really not the same as a picture of a faggot. Could someone replace the car with a picture of a faggot? Thanks!70.176.239.63 (talk) 09:30, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Your "humor" isn't appreciated here. PureRED (talk) 19:26, 17 March 2013 (UTC)