According to the OED https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/67623) "faggot" and "fag", used to refer to gay men in a derogatory way are "originally and chiefly North American". And in this wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(slang)#Use_in_the_United_Kingdom it is claimed ...
@Decapitated Soul: Thanks, but this doesn't really answer my question. I am asking a more specific question about the usage of "faggot" in British English in the 90s and 2000s. The dictionary definition doesn't really say anything about this.
@Edward.Lin you've managed to ask a legitimate question in such a way that it matches certain characteristics of typical troll posts. This is one of the rare cases where the system fails; those votes will be undone quite soon.
@Glorfindel. Thanks for letting me know :). But it would be useful to know why it has the characteristic of a troll post. Is it simply because I have used the word "faggot" ?
Your question itself is an opinion posing as fact ("When I grew up, the horrible pejorative expression "faggot" was not used by homophobes in the UK as an insult to gay men") - in 1968 a girlfriend told me she was "a bit of a fag-hag" (she liked the company of gay men). The word and its contraction were common in US and UK literature (e.g. Kerouac as early as 1950). People do read books, you know, and international travel was a thing, even then. I do not think your post is exactly trollish, but, for technical reasons, (mainly "opinion-based") it may be seen as a bad fit for this site.
@Michael Harvey: I'm sorry, but it is actually simply fact that in British English "fag" was not used. There might be isolated occurrences, but it certainly did not start to be used frequently until the early 2000s, unless you can actually prove otherwise. If you have examples of usage in British English, they would be appropriate in an answer. And the fact that a girlfriend told you something is just as subjective as any opinion I might have. Jack Kerouac was not British. He was Canadian.
I have no idea... I suspect that "faggot" is a loanword in British English, and not fully integrated. It has thus never really "entered" the language, but has, to a large degree, remained in its British meanings of (i) a bundle of (usually) sticks; (ii) a derogatory term for a woman, and (iii) a food item resembling a dumpling. ++ PS your apologies are unnecessary: "The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge." Carl Edward Sagan.
Pedantic and stubborn assertions ("it is simply fact") point to a certain lack of rigour, and also a certain attitude which is not liked here. Both of these attract negative attention, e.g. down- and close-votes.
In any case, my question is phrased in such a way that, if you are British English and you have a conflicting experience (i.e, you have heard people use the expression "fag" commonly in the past), then this would be relevant too. I am not excluding that possibility.
@Edward.Lin "Fag" also has its own problems of integration into British English, as it is (was) far commoner in its slang meaning of "a cigarette." The question that you are asking is probably impossible to answer but probably dates from some time after 1941 when large numbers of American troops came to the UK.
@Greybeard My own "hunch" is in fact that wikipedia probably has it right (!) when it says that "Use of fag and faggot as the term for an effeminate man has become understood as an Americanism in British English, primarily due to entertainment media use in films and television series imported from the United States." But I would be delighted to hear from native speakers of British English about this.
In British English "fag" was already in use for a junior student acting as a servant to a senior student. Even though the fagging system ended the meaning persisted, eg "fagged out" for very tired.
@Peter Yes, I was aware of that but thanks for pointing it out in our discussion :). But my main interest is when it became common in British English to hear people use "fag" or "faggot" as a slur against gay men.
@Greybeard Do you mean that "faggot" as a derogatory word for a homosexual is a loan word in Br English, or do you mean that the word with its original meanings of a bundle of sticks for firewood and a meatball made of off cuts is a loan word? I agree with your opinion if it relates only to the sexual meaning but the word with its other meanings is much older. "Faggot", like "gay", "queer" and many other really useful words has been virtually removed from the language by its modern sexual references.
@BoldBen Sorry for any confusion: Do you mean that "faggot" as a derogatory word for a homosexual is a loan word in Br English, Yes, this is what I mean. In that sense, it remains noticeably American English (to me, at least), perhaps, comparable to "candy".
@Edward.Lin Unless there is someone here who is over 90 years of age and who particularly took note of such use in British English, I doubt that any answer I, or anyone else, give will be at all useful - in such cases, the written word is the only reliable guide. Are you asking from idle curiosity or an academic position?
@Greybeard I am asking from the position of a gay man born in 1988 in the UK who was acutely aware of a shift towards homophobes using "fag" or "faggot". I think people around my age should be able to notice the shift, since I am quite certain that it was not until the early 2000s that the shift began. So I think people around my age and older might well have something to say. If people can find examples of the use of "fag" in British English from the 1980s, that would be really interesting, though I suspect they would be hard to come by.
@Edward.Lin I would be cautious about "fag" (as opposed to "faggot") - I'm not sure they are related. You would have to eliminate the possible derivation of "fag" from public (i.e. fee-paying) school slang "a junior boy as servant to a senior" and "a junior member of a group" (18th c.)
@Greybeard But my observation relates to both "fag" and to "faggot". I had never heard either of these terms being used to refer to gay males until the 2000s. The use of "fag" that you are referring to is in elite usage in the elite private schools (called public schools), which a very tiny proportion of the UK's children attend. I think it is highly unlikely that "fag" in the school sense transferred over to "fag" as a slur against gay men.
@Greybeard As I said before, the first time I heard people in the UK use "fag" as a slur, it was by non-native speakers of British English. In recent years I have heard it used by predominantly young speakers (younger than 30).
@nnnnnn Nice example! In the wikipedia page on the song, it is said that For the band's 10 July 1985 concert (televised in the United Kingdom on The Tube on Channel 4 in January 1986[14]), Knopfler replaced the word faggot with Queenie (in this context also a term that implies homosexuality): "See the little Queenie got the earring and the make-up" and "That little Queenie got his own jet airplane, he's got a helicopter, he's a millionaire."
@nnnnnn And the wikipedia page refers to the song being based on experience had when in New York and stopped by an appliance store. I suspect that the usage of "faggot" here is basically trying to recreate the American context of the experience. The fact that "faggot" had to be replaced by "Queenie" for a British audience, suggests in my mind that "faggot" was not a term used in 1980s British English as a slur.
Yes, "faggot" definitely implied homosexuality in the context of that song.. The live version I'm very familiar with was from a 1986 concert in Sydney that aired on Australian TV - in that version he said "faggot" in some places and "mother" in others. (I can remember it pretty clearly because I was a big fan back then and had taped the concert and replayed it many times.)
@nnnnnn Are you Australian? Because maybe the question I am asking could also be asked of the expressions "fag" and "faggot" in Australian English. Are these expressions used in contemporary Australian English by homophobic people?
I don't think "faggot" was replaced by "queenie" in live performances of "Money for Nothing" because British audiences were not expected to understand the original. I think it was done because "faggot" was felt to be offensive.
I'm Australian. I can remember in high school in the second half of the 80s some of the "less refined" students used "faggot" as an insult for other students. At the time I was pretty naive and didn't understand the full implication, but I later realised they definitely meant it as a homophobic slur. But "poofta" or just "poof" were more common slurs when I was in school. In my experience the shorter word "fag" meaning cigarette is more common than "fag" as a slur. (Incidentally, I had the same thought as Michael about "Queenie" possibly being due to British broadcast standards at the time.)
I don't understand the point of this question. In comment OP states it is actually simply fact that in British English "fag" was not used. There might be isolated occurrences, but it certainly did not start to be used frequently until the early 2000s, unless you can actually prove otherwise. So why, if you grew up in the UK, are you asking this question? It looks like a challenge, or an invitation to chat, as shown by the way comments have gone.
@Michael Harvey: Interesting. When did you notice "faggot" and "fag" being used by British English speakers as the preferred way of denigrating homosexuals (as opposed to using "poofter" and "queer" and other expressions)?
@Weather Vane: the point of asking the question is to hear from people who remember the (claimed) shift in usage, and to listen to what they have to say.
@Weather Vane: Indeed, I could have asked "when do you remember the use of X becoming more widespread in British English?" That surely would be a legitimate question to ask, and therefore not a question that anyone could have reason to downvote.
@WeatherVane: the question is actually quite factual: when did it become more common to use "fag" and "faggot" as insults made to gay men in British English? And surely this is a good question about English usage that we can legitimately ask?
I first heard 'faggot' and 'fag' being used, as I said, in the late 1960s, mainly by liberal, left-leaning intellectuals or admirers of 'beatnik' culture, using the term ironically, that is, non-pejoratively. I cannot say that I have ever noticed it replacing other terms to become the dominant one.
@MichaelHarvey Thanks :). Ok, that is also an interesting question: whether "faggot" and "fag" are now more common than the other derogatory terms in modern-day British English.
When I was a (white) hippy around 1968-1970, we used to call black people 'spades' and did not feel conscious of using racist language, although, of course, we were.
@Xanne I can't see how my specific question about the usage of "faggot" and "Fag" in British English have been answered on that page. In what way do you think my question is partly answered there?
Discussion on question by Edward.Lin:…
Discussion on question by Edward.Lin:…