EP18: F A G G O T: A Bundle of Sticks to a Linguistic Urban Legend

***TRIGGER WARNING

A friendly warning to all of you if you're not ready to hear the F-slur multiple times in reference to it, in reference to its history, in reference to all of that, it's present. It's present everything I recommend skipping this one, coming back to it at a later date when you feel like you can handle it more, or just skipping it all together. We totally understand and we will see you next time.***

Have you ever pondered the incredible elasticity of language, how a word can journey from the mundane to the malicious, and perhaps even find redemption in the mouths of those it once harmed? Our latest episode unravels the story of "faggot," a term with a past as varied as the individuals it has touched. We're joined by a linguist and columnist who shares his personal evolution from a youth peppered with homophobic slurs in Eastern Pennsylvania, to a proud, public celebration of his queer identity. His tale is interwoven with a historical look at the word's origins and its impact on society's perceptions of masculinity and gender roles.

This episode is not just about the word but about the power it wields, both to wound and to empower. Through engaging discussions and narratives, including a nod to Stephen Fry's own sexual awakening through literary great Oscar Wilde, we analyze the delicate art of reclaiming slurs. The conversation is laced with consideration for the complexities of context and consent, and we present a caveat on the limitations of reclamation. For a touch of inspiration, we also suggest tuning into "V for Vendetta," a film with layers of meaning for queer audiences. Don't miss this compelling exploration of language's role in shaping, and reshaping, identities.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:16

Playing and Sweet Tip, a warning to all of you if you're not ready to hear the F-slur multiple times in reference to it, in reference to its history, in reference to all of that, it's present. It's present everything I recommend skipping this one, coming back to it at a later date when you feel like you can handle it more, or just skipping it all together. We totally understand and we will see you next time.

Speaker 2: 0:44

Today we're going to dive into the origins and history and evolution of the word bag. We're going to discuss the dichotomy of this word used as a slur and also the power behind it as it's reclaimed by our community. We're going to dive into the original meaning of the word faggot, specifically as a bundle of sticks used for fuel, because that's part of the origin of the word, and then discuss some of the linguistic evolution from faggot to a derogatory term.

Speaker 1: 1:14

And then over time, how it was shortened, even as it became a derogatory term, to just the shortened version of fag, even how there are some words that came off of it, like terms like fag, hag and things like that. So there's a lot of power to our words and there's a lot of power to the way words evolved over time and there's a lot of importance to learning about where they came from and how they got to where they are.

Speaker 2: 1:39

It's really fun to just dive into words that at one point did mean something derogatory, but we're being witness to how now they're being reclaimed and used in an essence of power.

Speaker 1: 1:52

Absolutely. And yeah, there's a lot of power in there. I mean, yeah, as you say, power in that there's a lot of hope in being able to turn something so ugly and that's been used against so many queer people into something of a almost like a big fuck you to heteronormative society. You know, it's just, it's like a big middle finger to the way they want us to be.

Speaker 2: 2:17

The most interesting thing that I found in the origins of the word is that it actually dates back all the way to the late 13th century, which blows my mind.

Speaker 1: 2:27

Right, like there's a little old word. Does that make sense? That makes it older than queer.

Speaker 2: 2:33

Absolutely does.

Speaker 1: 2:34

The square came from the 16th century, so that's faggot, that is wild. Faggot is older than queer.

Speaker 2: 2:43

Yep, yeah. And the origins of the word back then directly translated as bundle of sticks, bundle of twigs bound up, gotcha yeah, most likely has roots in Italian and Bulgarian Latin theories.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Yes, and possibly from the Greek word plakios, meaning bundle.

Speaker 2: 3:01

I love that I was going there. Next. You read my mind.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Yeah, it kind of almost has like a plank vibe to it, like you can see how sticks even came from that root word. It just gives. It gives that vibe when you bring it into a newer English. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, it brings it into the 15th century because by then it was being used for burning executions, specifically when referring to heretics. So much so that the phrase fire and faggot, which has some kind of energy behind it, came to mean punishment of a heretic, which is so wild.

Speaker 2: 3:36

It is very wild, yeah. Tell me your thoughts on that.

Speaker 1: 3:38

Well, I mean, for those who don't know, the act of heresy is the act of thinking, believing or doing against whatever the dominant doctrine of the time is, and we all understand that it's usually being Christianity. But there was a period of time where that dominant doctrine was, say, the Roman or the Greek gods and goddesses, like in the time when Socrates was sentenced to death from heresy. So it's just very interesting to see how that evolved over time. And now it's just a word that basically means nothing. Or if it means anything, it means going against the government, like there's heresy against the government and things like that, but as a form of like religious punishment it doesn't really exist anymore.

Speaker 2: 4:16

Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 1: 4:17

What about you?

Speaker 2: 4:18

I mean heretics of that time who recanted right rather than being put to death or forced to wear an embroidered figure of a faggot on their sleeve which, you know, resembled a bundle of sticks. So it's just, it's crazy.

Speaker 1: 4:31

And that is so eerie to think about, Like you're forced to wear basically what almost killed you Exactly. Yeah, that's a very interesting thing. From there you can see how in like European English countries nowadays a fag is a cigarette.

Speaker 2: 4:48

Right.

Speaker 1: 4:48

Like can I pinch a fag? Is a common phrase that you will hear in many European English countries.

Speaker 2: 4:56

Yeah, and it actually means, like in America, right, bombing a smoke. It leads me to think like okay, well, is it offensive to call a cigarette a fag? Is it a slur? Is it unintentional? Is it intentional? But actually calling a cigarette a fag predates calling a gay person a fag. So Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 5:14

Yeah, which is another thing that's just so mind-boggling. Once again, one comes before the other and it's kind of like a chicken and the egg thing. Yeah, I appreciate those. Yeah, the cigarette meaning for for fag came from the meaning for like a loose piece or last remnant of cloth, because at its origins fag didn't even mean a full cigarette, it just meant the butt of a cigarette, right? So even how that itself has evolved into meaning. Can I bum a full cigarette rather than this is just the butt end of one.

Speaker 2: 5:48

That also I know that there was eventually a latter meaning of the word fag had its roots in like public boarding school environments with respect to like young kids, young males doing chores. It reminds me of rookies, when you first I don't know join us for or join the band, yeah, and they make all the rookies go in fetch water and stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 6:07

I guess that must have been England's version. Instead of calling them rookies or calling them new kids, it was the younger kids that would do chores, for the older kids were referred to as fags.

Speaker 2: 6:18

Right and it was normally, you know, chores that were associated with things that women would normally do, women's chores, so to speak. A lot of times these younger males. They ended up doing a lot of the cleaning and other duties on the premises for the older kids and they use brooms while doing these chores and they started to refer to the brooms as faggots, because technically the broom was a pile of sticks, which is really funny. The broom literally is. I mean, if you think about a broom, that's old school, right before the evolution of the. I don't know what they're made out of now, probably synthetic hair or something I don't know.

Speaker 1: 6:53

Oh, but it was just a bundle of sticks. Bundle of sticks, yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:55

And they just use that to sweep and do the house chores and yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1: 7:00

Yeah, that was wild.

Speaker 2: 7:02

And then I guess with that the word for the actual tool itself was applied to the person operating the tool or using the tool. So the broom was called a fag, and then now the person using it is being called a fag. And since these boys were associated with the women's chores, it evolved that, you know, fag kind of had that connotation, association vibe, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:29

It's actually. It's so wild to me that it's a linguistic urban legend that faggot as a slur was connected to the execution of gay people by fire. That has to do with one another, that the sticks being thrown into the fire and there is no connection between those two according to historic linguistics, which is so crazy. It's super crazy. It's one of those things is, while it's a really popular idea that LGBTQ people were executed by fire, the only account historical that we have of that actually occurring was the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, which only happens in the Bible.

Speaker 2: 8:14

Right.

Speaker 1: 8:15

And that was the burning of salt as to whether or not you believe that actually occurred. But either way, it just became so ingrained in our pop culture that, even though it never really happened in recent accounts of history, we just it becomes. It's connected and it's just. Even in 1533, when queer people could be sentenced to death by the English government for being queer, their punishment was to be hung Right the hanging, yeah, hanged, mm-hmm. Hanged, hung. I always hung.

Speaker 2: 8:47

I think either works.

Speaker 1: 8:48

It works. Of course I wasn't sure, yeah, but yeah, it's one of those things where that connection just kind of happened through this pop culture, urban legend mythos that never really occurred in our history.

Speaker 2: 9:02

Yeah, it's, I think, that theory. Well, there's several theories, but I think one of them suggests that faggot was used because gay men were sometimes burned at the stake like faggot during witch hunts in history, which is just a theory, right, since there really is no historical evidence to support that, and then you know. Another theory is that the term was linked to stereotypes of gay men as effeminate or weaker. Like we were saying before, they're doing chores, they're doing all this quote unquote, bitch work, right, but similar to the idea of being a bundle of sticks which was seen as weak or unmanly.

Speaker 1: 9:35

I remember something that has to be carried, something that has to be brought along with you as kind of like a task or a chore, rather than something that yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:45

Yeah, I think you know those are the reasons behind the same slur being developed independently of one another, with one referencing womanly chores coming from the American culture, the connection to fagging coming from England where that custom was often practiced. So there's different layers of the evolution in different parts of the story that were kind of piecing together.

Speaker 1: 10:04

Yeah, it's just, it's so crazy how, like these two, the same word, having the same meaning, the same slur developed in two separate countries, basically entirely independently of one another, exactly With their own influences, their own. You see it all over the world. Like things like that happen all the time. You've seen it even in like ancient cultures, where, like there are Mayan cultures and Incan cultures and cultures that never really interacted with one another but understood the same truths about certain things. And it always just fascinates me when humans are able to link across oceans, across anything, and just kind of come to the same conclusion with totally different reasons. Even if the conclusion is bad, it's still really interesting to see how that happens.

Speaker 2: 10:57

Yeah, man, I love how at the end it's okay. Here's the history, here's the evolution, here's the hardship. Here are the negative things associated with the word when it has been used in a derogatory sense or accompanied hate crimes. I mean, we had just recently really horrific hate crime out in California where a mother of nine was shot on the property of her small business because she had a pride flag hanging on her property and there were slurs vocalized before her life was taken. And so the word Vag along with other slurs. They carry a lot of emotion and a lot of history and a very rich sense of evolution, a lot of dynamics.

Speaker 1: 11:36

There's even there's a whole idea of so. Many queer people went to death with that being the last thing playing through their head. That was the last thing they ever heard. Countless, countless people just like us. Their last thing they ever heard, rather than being compassion or understanding or love, was that. Yeah, and that's why, while there is so much power and reclamation, there has to be an understanding of it. It must be a respect toward the history of that, because it has been used against us. So every queer person I feel like has an experience.

Speaker 2: 12:18

Yeah, At the end of the day, those disparaging undertones, they're still there. I think in one sense we can say that they're wearing off, but in another sense it's gonna take a while to wear off. That's the dichotomy of it.

Speaker 1: 12:31

The moment I hear us, as straight person, even try to say that word, my whole my blood runs cold. My bones feel like ice. It's just like that. This is not your, your dots, this, no, this is no.

Speaker 2: 12:47

Yeah, I think that the LGBT plus population, the queer community, is reticent to accept those terms being used from quote-unquote outsiders, you know, because of the history 100%, not absolutely.

Speaker 2: 13:02

But I mean gay turned around and queer was reclaimed. You know, as we discussed in our last episode, even the word dyke, you know, and I this this came up for me a little bit because you know we're talking about fag on this episode, which is more associated with gay men or gay boys, it, depending on the, the part of history that you're looking at, and I I've never been called a fag, but I've definitely been called dyke in my experience, and you know it's like these derogatory terms and they, while they do have the ability to be reclaimed, I think at some point they do have it does have its limits, you know. But one thing that I found was super interesting in some of the research was that back in 2003 there was a the San Francisco women's motorcycle contingent. They're a lesbian motorcycles club. They put in for a trademark name dykes on bikes.

Speaker 2: 13:56

It was called like the United States patent and trademark office, which is shortened to the PTO, and they were rejected. They were denied because they basically said that that trademark might disparage or falsely suggest a connection with Dot dot dot. They didn't want to be, they didn't want to, I guess, approve something that would offend. So they, the club, put in an appeal and they compiled 66 pages of exhibit showing that the lesbian community had reclaimed and Reclaimed this traditionally derogatory term, and you know. Now it's like a symbol of pride and so on and so forth and they actually were approved and that's that was first initiation of dykes on bikes. They became like an official trademark two years later. So they I think they're they originally applied in 2003 and then by 2005 they became official. And that's why you have the motorcycle rallies, dykes on bikes, and nobody says anything because you're just like, yeah, yeah, you know that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 14:49

Yeah, a little side story.

Speaker 1: 14:51

Absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 2: 14:53

I I love that but just to say, no matter what the origin is or the history is, it's, it's it's used to Disempower somebody, it's it's used as an insult. Basically, you see the evolution that over time you can start to reclaim a word and it becomes empowering because now you're just claiming it for yourself to say, yeah, you know what. That is me. There's a columnist who wrote I think it was in Stanford is wiki Arnold's wiki. He grew up in Eastern Pennsylvania. He says that growing up in Eastern PA he was called sissy, a lot, and fairy and faggot. And so now he's, he's a linguist and he's a column writer. He says, quote I hated it all he recalls. But now he says I'm a public faggot. And it says here, when not publicly parading his wonderful Fagotry as wiki works on writing and publishing his fiction and creating homoerotic Collages in Palo Alto, california.

Speaker 2: 15:48

But he, he wrote this amazing article that Stanford printed and it's called the other F word. It's printed by, I guess, their newsletter called voices and there's this, all this artwork at the top and it says faggot and it's like it almost looks like graffiti. You know how you would go on to like a in a newspaper or like a magazine. You would cut out all the different letters and they're all different fonts and colors. He put it at the top and it just popped.

Speaker 2: 16:15

And I think that's so cool because at the end of the day, it's going to grab your attention. You know there's a really cool article for the listeners if you want to look that up. It's just it's from a queer's point of view, having been called faggot in his whole life. So he's writing as a way of expression, he's writing through the lens of his own experience and he's a linguist. So what's really cool about his perspective is he's looking through the lens of okay, here's a word, what do words mean and how are words used and what is the syntax of this word and subtle meanings and so on and so forth. You know things that, like non-linguists, would not know to look for.

Speaker 1: 16:54

Oh, I loved that.

Speaker 2: 16:55

It's really cool. It's a really cool read and a side note, it would be really cool to have him on as a guest.

Speaker 1: 17:01

That is so valid. I loved it. But honestly, though, what's so interesting about specifically the word faggot is I feel like it hasn't just been used against queer men or just queer people in general, but I feel like it has been used so much who completely and totally stifle men in general. Any man who acts outside of the idea of masculinity and what a man should be and basically just even learns things like cognitive empathy before the age of 30, they're considered a faggot, come on. That's why we have a bunch of people who don't know how to connect with each other and they're lonely. And because you got to be in touch with your feelings, you have to feel in order to empathize, and without cognitive empathy, no one wants to be around you, and they end up going into the desert and taking shrooms for the first time and being like, oh my God, people aren't NPCs. And it's like, yeah, dude, took you this long to realize that.

Speaker 1: 18:07

So, yeah, I feel like that's one of those things about this word that I feel like is so fascinating, because not only has it been used so viscerally against the community, but I think it's one of the only slurs that is also used so viscerally against people, not even in the community, but just in touch with their feminine side. I don't know if you necessarily see that with other slurs. I may be wrong, I may be mistaken, I may be totally off-based, but I feel like other slurs are predominantly used to hurt communities that they're intended to hurt, whereas that I feel like it's just meant to just make men feel like women, which in and of itself is a harmful idea, because why does that hurt your feeling?

Speaker 2: 18:51

Yeah, yeah. And it also is demeaning to women. So it's twofold in the layers of hurt. It's meant to insult not just the gentleman or the man who's gay, but also it's a double whammy. You're less than you're effeminate, you're weak. You're just like a woman. It reminds me of somethings Wiki said, too, when I read his article about the word faggot and how it does two things at once, and his perspective is that it refers to the gay man. So it's like you're calling somebody a faggot, you're basically saying you're a gay man, but it also serves to insult them at the same time.

Speaker 1: 19:28

It's got many, many layers in the way it is used to hurt so many different people who may or may not even be part of the community is just absolutely insane. I said I may be wrong, but I do not think there is another slur that is used to quite that degree and in quite that wide a scope. It feels like the scope of this one is so wide, and I never quite thought about it like that until doing this research and doing this episode. Even I believe the linguistic misconception about Faggot having connections to executions of queer people. As we learn so much more we're able to understand our identities more, understand ourselves more, understand other people more the world around us, more like where we came from, matters so much. I must say, though, while we have come a very, very, very long way in the work of Reclamation it's something that you see all around you.

Speaker 1: 20:27

At Gay Pride, you can literally see people wearing shirts that say Fag with the A as like the anarchy symbol and stuff like that, and it's great and I'm loving it we have to remember that there are people who hate us, who are still using this word against us all the time. For example, there is a bar called the Eagles Nest in Cheyenne, wyoming, which I'm not sure if you all know, but Wyoming is the state in which Matthew Shepard was brutally, brutally murdered for the sole reason of being gay. There is a bar in Cheyenne, wyoming, named the Eagles Nest that is selling shirts, or was selling shirts in 2021. They are no longer, allegedly. I have not looked into it because I don't want to traumatize myself, but they claim they have been selling these shirts since the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, and the shirt reads in Wyoming we have a cure for AIDS.

Speaker 1: 21:28

We shoot F-slurs in the face. I won't even say the word for that. You know what I mean. Like reading that, I'm shaking. Yeah, it's hard to keep my voice steady. That's terrifying, and that was two years ago in Wyoming. All of y'all in Wyoming stay safe. Please, all of y'all out there, stay safe. We have to remember that this word is still being used against us constantly, but we have had social progress, which is good.

Speaker 2: 21:56

It's empowering when we can reclaim our own word and just say, hey, I'm a faggot, you know. It has a lot of power and emotion, more so than just saying like I'm gay. And I think you know we can use our discretion as to you know how we're feeling emotionally in the moment and also, you know, within certain social contexts, right and environments, making sure that they're in an environment that's safe for us.

Speaker 1: 22:22

Callum said if you want to refer to yourself as a fag, if you want to own that, then that's great, but I don't think anyone has the right to use that word to refer to other people, period. If you want to own that for yourself, it's like go do it. But unless you know that person very well and you know they're going to be okay with it and you know it's you know, I mean no, it's not going to hurt them, even like you ask. That's what I mean by no. I don't mean like you assume. I mean you ask unless you know for a fact it's not going to hurt them. Don't use it for them, just say it plain and simply Use it for yourself.

Speaker 2: 23:08

Go for it. Yeah, there are certain language and terms that are used as what I call like neighborhood or friendly. You know, within certain, like I said, within certain contexts, with certain people, you never know there might be some disparage party within your circle in that moment and you just want to be sensitive to whatever they've been exposed to or whatever they've been through. Just because you're reclaiming that word doesn't diminish the defensiveness of that term.

Speaker 1: 23:32

Right. It doesn't erase someone else's experience with it. Your reclamation doesn't erase someone else's past with that word. I feel like that goes for basically any slur that can be reclaimed, because, mind you, there are some that cannot be reclaimed.

Speaker 2: 23:47

All right, Kit, do you want to share a fun fact with our listeners?

Speaker 1: 23:51

Yes. So a fact that I think is fascinating. Queer actor Stephen Fry, who played a very important, at least to me, and prominent role in the movie V for Vendetta and he's been in so many other things, he has said in an interview with Radio Times that it was through reading about Oscar Wilde's trial and specifically Wilde's correspondences with his forbidden love Bozy, that Fry realized as a teenager he was also gay. It was when Oscar was writing about his nature. He would say that his nature was the same as mine and as soon as I read that I knew I was gay. And if you haven't seen V for Vendetta, totally check it out, especially if you're queer, you'll love it.