19 Mar 2009, 8:57 am
Homosexuals were using the word gay to refer to themselves for a long time before it became accepted/semi-official terminology in the 1970's.
In the 1300's gay meant "carefree/uninhibited", and "brilliant/bright and showy". In the 1600's its meaning had changed, to "addicted to pleasures and dissipations", "uninhibited by moral constraints", even frankly "immoral". In the early-mid 1800's a "gey cat" meant a "homosexual boy", specifically a young hobo on the road with an older man, and in the 1890's a "gay house" was a brothel. In the late 1800's "gay" was used to refer to homosexual customers of male prostitutes.
The word temporarily lost its explicitly sexual connotation at the end of the 19th century; people in "polite society" used it to mean lively, merry, uninhibited, ( in a general sense ), etc, but in the underground homosexual culture of the 1920's it retained its older meaning; the 70's just made it public.
Nice comes from the latin "nescient", literally "unknowing", which in Middle English meant "foolish, silly, simple, weak, senseless".
The word went through a number of changes in emphasis over the next 500 years, but it tended to mean one or more of the above and;
1) Over-scrupulous, exacting, hard to please or satisfy, fastidious in small matters, finicky, particular, fussy, meticulous, choosy, picky.
2) Delicate, refined, easily disgusted, dainty, refined, squeamish, virtuous, pure.
3) Exhibiting courtesy and politeness, socially or conventionally correct, befitting, correct, decent, decorous, proper, seemly, right.
4) Done or made with careful labour, suited to excite admiration on account of exactness, evidencing great skill, subtle, exact, fine, finished, fastidiously discriminated, done with delicacy and skill, attentive to slight differences or delicate distinctions, distinguishing accurately and minutely, careful discrimination, as in "nicely judged", "nice work", "nice proportions".
... aswell as the more debased/unreflecting "agreeable, pleasing and good". 
.
Last edited by ouinon on 19 Mar 2009, 9:12 am, edited 7 times in total.
19 Mar 2009, 9:03 am
19 Mar 2009, 9:20 am
ephemerella wrote:
You have such a novel, interesting and unusual take on things. Your description of "nice" relative to AS is interesting.
Thank you.
Quote:
I agree that homosexual males are often "gay" and appealing, and it's easy to feel drawn to them.
That is not exactly what I said, though I am sure that many gays are indeed lively, merry, bright, uninhibited and delightful.
I meant that calling ourselves "nice" would be similar to, a close equivalent of, people in the homosexual community calling themselves "gay"; words with a similarly chequered history of both positive/approving and negative/derogatory connotations, both of which sets of qualities are actually relevant to the group in each case, but which most importantly are not medical terms.
.
19 Mar 2009, 9:35 am
19 Mar 2009, 9:42 am
19 Mar 2009, 10:39 am
ZodRau wrote:
Except 3) Exhibiting courtesy and politeness, socially or conventionally correct, befitting, correct, decent, decorous, proper, seemly, right, doesn't seem to fit very well without behavior modification
Not all homosexuals are very "gay" either, ( in the early 20th century meaning of the word; merry, lively and uninhibited ).
I think the behaviours under 3) are a remarkably good description of the kind of social behaviour some/many AS do manage to achieve; that is a measured, considered, learned kind, rather than the instinctive/intuitive/"natural" kind that NTs are supposed to exhibit. 200 years ago most social life/activity functioned on the basis of rules/codes about what you could say, when, and to whom.
Behaviour modification varies. Society today privileges the "spontaneous" kind of social behaviour, which puts us at a disadvantage. Though many of us can pick up how to do "polite/courteous", the qualities of decent, correct, and decorous have become so unfashionable that our natural inclination towards what is right/just/seemly is seen, and treated, as pernickety, fussy, fastidious, finicky, over-scrupulous, particular, and we are accused of being uptight.
... ... "Nice" guys finish last !
.
Last edited by ouinon on 19 Mar 2009, 10:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
19 Mar 2009, 10:41 am
ephemerella wrote:
Your interesting background on the use of the word "nice" shows how it also relates to transparency, naivete and simplicity of social function. So being "nice" is kind of like being simple, ret*d or naive? I can think of a lot of NTs who would think that!
Absolutely,
in just the same way as "gay" also means/meant immoral. It depends on your viewpoint.
.
19 Mar 2009, 11:42 am
19 Mar 2009, 12:20 pm
19 Mar 2009, 12:54 pm
Asmodeus wrote:
Well researched.
Thank you.
kittenmeow wrote:
There are just too many instances of people twisting up definitions and morphing it into what was not intended or clearly stated.
Which instances/words/definitions were you thinking of in particular?
I think evolution is actually an intrinsic part of any healthy/successful language. Languages which have had restrictions put on them, in which variation, evolution, immigration from other languages, etc, was outlawed/forbidden have tended to stagnate, shrink, die off, lose followers.
.
19 Mar 2009, 3:02 pm
19 Mar 2009, 3:30 pm
19 Mar 2009, 3:37 pm
19 Mar 2009, 4:14 pm
LivingOutsideTheBox wrote:
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYAH!...You just gave us a single-snap way of describing our lovely, loopy, ludicrous, awsome, ... cultural/biological subgroup. I'm gonna take this word. And fling it into GLOBAL...dutch..popularity.
A "Nice Day" in Holland then?
.
19 Mar 2009, 7:46 pm
ouinon wrote:
Homosexuals were using the word gay to refer to themselves for a long time before it became accepted/semi-official terminology in the 1970's.
In the 1300's gay meant "carefree/uninhibited", and "brilliant/bright and showy". In the 1600's its meaning had changed, to "addicted to pleasures and dissipations", "uninhibited by moral constraints", even frankly "immoral". In the early-mid 1800's a "gey cat" meant a "homosexual boy", specifically a young hobo on the road with an older man, and in the 1890's a "gay house" was a brothel. In the late 1800's "gay" was used to refer to homosexual customers of male prostitutes.
The word temporarily lost its explicitly sexual connotation at the end of the 19th century; people in "polite society" used it to mean lively, merry, uninhibited, ( in a general sense ), etc, but in the underground homosexual culture of the 1920's it retained its older meaning; the 70's just made it public.
Nice comes from the latin "nescient", literally "unknowing", which in Middle English meant "foolish, silly, simple, weak, senseless".
The word went through a number of changes in emphasis over the next 500 years, but it tended to mean one or more of the above and;
1) Over-scrupulous, exacting, hard to please or satisfy, fastidious in small matters, finicky, particular, fussy, meticulous, choosy, picky.
2) Delicate, refined, easily disgusted, dainty, refined, squeamish, virtuous, pure.
3) Exhibiting courtesy and politeness, socially or conventionally correct, befitting, correct, decent, decorous, proper, seemly, right.
4) Done or made with careful labour, suited to excite admiration on account of exactness, evidencing great skill, subtle, exact, fine, finished, fastidiously discriminated, done with delicacy and skill, attentive to slight differences or delicate distinctions, distinguishing accurately and minutely, careful discrimination, as in "nicely judged", "nice work", "nice proportions".
... aswell as the more debased/unreflecting "agreeable, pleasing and good".
.
In the 1300's gay meant "carefree/uninhibited", and "brilliant/bright and showy". In the 1600's its meaning had changed, to "addicted to pleasures and dissipations", "uninhibited by moral constraints", even frankly "immoral". In the early-mid 1800's a "gey cat" meant a "homosexual boy", specifically a young hobo on the road with an older man, and in the 1890's a "gay house" was a brothel. In the late 1800's "gay" was used to refer to homosexual customers of male prostitutes.
The word temporarily lost its explicitly sexual connotation at the end of the 19th century; people in "polite society" used it to mean lively, merry, uninhibited, ( in a general sense ), etc, but in the underground homosexual culture of the 1920's it retained its older meaning; the 70's just made it public.
Nice comes from the latin "nescient", literally "unknowing", which in Middle English meant "foolish, silly, simple, weak, senseless".
The word went through a number of changes in emphasis over the next 500 years, but it tended to mean one or more of the above and;
1) Over-scrupulous, exacting, hard to please or satisfy, fastidious in small matters, finicky, particular, fussy, meticulous, choosy, picky.
2) Delicate, refined, easily disgusted, dainty, refined, squeamish, virtuous, pure.
3) Exhibiting courtesy and politeness, socially or conventionally correct, befitting, correct, decent, decorous, proper, seemly, right.
4) Done or made with careful labour, suited to excite admiration on account of exactness, evidencing great skill, subtle, exact, fine, finished, fastidiously discriminated, done with delicacy and skill, attentive to slight differences or delicate distinctions, distinguishing accurately and minutely, careful discrimination, as in "nicely judged", "nice work", "nice proportions".
... aswell as the more debased/unreflecting "agreeable, pleasing and good".
.
Why don't you look at a dictionary?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gay
The original and, until recently, ONLY meaning of gay was colorful and cheerful.
AND, if you were right, WHY did a 1903 song use it as colorful/cheerful?
Though apparently SIMILAR to what you say, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay ! It agrees with what I say!
Quote:
The word "gay" arrived in English during the 12th century from Old French gai, most likely deriving ultimately from a Germanic source.[1] For most of its life in English, the word's primary meaning was "joyful", "carefree", "bright and showy", and the word was very commonly used with this meaning in speech and literature. For example, the optimistic 1890s are still often referred to as the Gay Nineties. The title of the 1938 French ballet Gaîté Parisienne ("Parisian Gaiety") also illustrates this connotation. It was apparently not until the 20th century that the word began to be used to mean specifically "homosexual", although it had earlier acquired sexual connotations.[1]
The derived abstract noun gaiety remains largely free of sexual connotations, although it has in the past been used in the names of places of entertainment; one of Oscar Wilde's favourite venues in Dublin was the Gaiety Theatre.[citation needed]
Sexualization
The word had started to acquire associations of immorality by 1637[1] and was used in the late 17th century with the meaning "addicted to pleasures and dissipations."[6] This was by extension from the primary meaning of "carefree": implying "uninhibited by moral constraints." A gay woman was a prostitute, a gay man a womanizer and a gay house a brothel.[1]
The use of gay to mean "homosexual" was in origin merely an extension of the word's sexualised connotation of "carefree and uninhibited," which implied a willingness to disregard conventional or respectable sexual mores. Such usage is documented as early as the 1920s, and there is evidence for it before the 20th century,[1] although it was initially more commonly used to imply heterosexually unconstrained lifestyles, as in the once-common phrase "gay Lothario,"[7] or in the title of the book and film The Gay Falcon (1941), which concerns a womanizing detective whose first name is "Gay." Well into the mid 20th century a middle-aged bachelor could be described as "gay" without any implication of homosexuality. This usage could apply to women too. The British comic strip Jane was first published in the 1930s and described the adventures of Jane Gay. Far from implying homosexuality, it referred to her freewheeling lifestyle with plenty of boyfriends (while also punning on Lady Jane Grey).
The derived abstract noun gaiety remains largely free of sexual connotations, although it has in the past been used in the names of places of entertainment; one of Oscar Wilde's favourite venues in Dublin was the Gaiety Theatre.[citation needed]
Sexualization
The word had started to acquire associations of immorality by 1637[1] and was used in the late 17th century with the meaning "addicted to pleasures and dissipations."[6] This was by extension from the primary meaning of "carefree": implying "uninhibited by moral constraints." A gay woman was a prostitute, a gay man a womanizer and a gay house a brothel.[1]
The use of gay to mean "homosexual" was in origin merely an extension of the word's sexualised connotation of "carefree and uninhibited," which implied a willingness to disregard conventional or respectable sexual mores. Such usage is documented as early as the 1920s, and there is evidence for it before the 20th century,[1] although it was initially more commonly used to imply heterosexually unconstrained lifestyles, as in the once-common phrase "gay Lothario,"[7] or in the title of the book and film The Gay Falcon (1941), which concerns a womanizing detective whose first name is "Gay." Well into the mid 20th century a middle-aged bachelor could be described as "gay" without any implication of homosexuality. This usage could apply to women too. The British comic strip Jane was first published in the 1930s and described the adventures of Jane Gay. Far from implying homosexuality, it referred to her freewheeling lifestyle with plenty of boyfriends (while also punning on Lady Jane Grey).
19 Mar 2009, 7:48 pm
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