Just as a sort of fun quiz…
Try to guess what the above banner is about (all you UK residents, quiet, please… let them think!) before you peek here.
See? Learning another language can be fun!
Wow, that’s almost as funny as eating Spotted Dick… I have no idea what it means. I’ve heard the term before, but I forgot.
hmmm
Well, on the box it says PORk faggots, and there’s pea’s and what seems to be mashed potatoes and meatballs. So I’m thinking, hmmm, the peas can’t be pork and the mashed potatoes are potato… so is it pork meatballs? or sausage? iono 
I remember in history class in school, we had to read an exerpt from a description of a public execution by fire, it included the phrase “They heaped faggots upon him until he was quite covered by them”
Hei
One of my friends is a faggot…
Re: Hei
One of your friends is a porkball? I’ve heard of people talking to volleyballs, but not porkballs… 
Oh, yeah, and Canadians, too, this is NOT what you think…
If you were his friend, you wouldn’t be calling him a “faggot”.
Are you bragging, or complaining?
(I was wondering who would miss the point first…)
Re: Oh, yeah, and Canadians, too, this is NOT what you think…
obviously the faggots, duh!?!
Now, now, Dave…
just thought i’d practise for my appearance on an upcoming south african quiz show
my category?
the bleedin’ obvious!
(with apologies to john cleese and the creators of fawlty towers)
(no faggots were harmed during the making of this pointless post)
in this age of political correctness, for how long can a product with that name remain on the shelves?
do we not owe it to our sense of dignity to make sure it goes the same way as those really hard, really round, really black pieces of candy we used to eat when we were young and stupid?
and called by that disgusting name?
Are you referring to something called “Tar Babies”?
In America, when I was growing up, we had penny candy by that name… they were little, black, doll-shaped gummis.
You also missed the point, Dave.
The term “faggot” originated outside of America, and meant and still means something much different and innocent than the meaning that you seem to also know.
Don’t you think the older meaning takes precedence?
my pointmissing exploits are legendary
it’s getting to the point where i (almost) dont even feel stupid anymore
actually i was reffering to ‘nigger balls’
i’m not sure how widely spread that name was known
we deal with reality and perception of reality
the reality may be that in ivory towers of academic linguistics we want the older version of the world to take precedence
sadly, languages dont work thaddaway
refer all the threads about ‘making’ a unislang
languages will do their own thing and the astute user of the language will not only know the rules of the languages (and where to download the best spell-checker), but also the meanings words accrue as they go about in the mouths of the people
i’m not suggesting u must know all slang spoken by all people at any given time
the size of that task makes is simply impossible
a word like faggot however has a fairly well established derogatory meaning and to use it is to risk offending
not because of where or how it originated, but by what it means to a majority of current listeners
language is for the people
According to this article, people in England are not offended at all by the name of Mr. Brain’s meatballs.
BTW, what does the word “fanny” mean to you?
Uh
Here in the US “Fanny” means like a small child equipped with a very large fan strapped to their heads and they point themselves so air is blown onto someone of greater power and who “owns” this child. I think…
refer my comment about majority listeners above
still doesn’t give u the ‘right’ to tell me i missed the point
u can’t pick your continent
u can only be ‘sensitive’
but i’m not holding my breath
breakfast!
I never said that you were stupid, Dave.
Doesn’t the fact that I had a point, but you missed it give me the “right” to tell you that you missed the point?
My point was how interesting and funny dialectical differences can be. “PC” also means “personal computer”, for example.
I disagree that the “majority” rules when it comes to language. If that were true, you probably wouldn’t be speaking English now, would you?
I can, and have, picked my continent.
If you don’t think I’m sensitive 
(sniff!), take a peek in the SPAM BIN… and I definitely recommend holding your breath down there! 
What’s for breakfast?
now listen, i don’t need u or anyone else to tell me i’m stupid
i’ve known since,…well,…i’ve known for a long time
i allways suspected, u know how it is, somethings just aren’t quite right and u wonder…
by, slightly tongue-in-cheek, exploring the ‘obvious’ meaning in the dialecticall differences, i missed the point?
interesting
here’s how much i know about the term ‘fag’ especially as used in british public schools
the woman in my life’s ex-husband was at eton and charles, princess di’s brother, was his ‘fag’
how’s that for shameless namedropping and futhering the discussion, all at the same time?
i went thru a schooling system where i was and had a ‘fag’
i suspect we may, once again, have exploited/fallen victim to one of the weaknesses of the faceless internet communication
majority liisteners?
not speak english?
u missed this one
the original phrase was ‘majority of current listeners’
on this forum, by a short head, american probably takes it with english close behind
i didn’t mean the continent comment to refer to your residential arrangements
(u’re slipping rick)
i meant u can’t choose in which continents’ lingua franca u want to be understood in
u have to accept that there r more people who watch ‘jerry springer’ than went to eton
breakfast, lunch and supper
In fact, no. Language usage is much more complicated than mere seniority.
Coney Island is so named because it used to swarm with rabbits, coney being an old word for rabbits. (This discussion exists in another thread and yes, coney is not exactly a rabbit in its biblical usage, but is for the purposes of the Island discussed here). The word coney however, became to be too close in sound to a slang word for female private parts and so it went from usage to obsolesence to being obsolete. Have a look here.
The word niggardly, meaning “grudging and petty in giving or spending” has undergone a similar process. Here in the states a man lost his job and then was rehired for using this word.
So in terms of sociolinguistics, words don’t have rights. They are used insomuch as speakers wish to use them. Whether it is victorian moral indignation or that of modern day PCers that cause a word to fall into disuse is irrelevant. Both represent social forces current to their times and they will have their say. I don’t know the current status of the word “faggot” in the UK, but if it has become or does become a pejorative word for gay men, then it will eventual disappear as a term meaning stick, cigarette or porkball or whatever the hell else it means.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
… OK, OK… power to the ignorant masses, then…
Elitism at its finest.
According to the research of William Labov, a sociolinguist, it is generally women from the middle classes that have the strongest influence over shifts in language. The hypothesis has it that the lower and upper classes could give two shits about how others view their use of language, but that the middle class is always striving to stay above those below them and emulate those above. For this reason the middle classes are constantly, in gradual often imperceptible ways, shifting their behavior, including language, to accomodate these perceived needs. And since it is women who are often most acutely tuned to subtle social conditions, they are the drivers of the shifts.
Anyway, that’s one theory.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ