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Faggot is still a pejorative in the UK, it's just _also_ a food.
by faceplanted 7y ago
Faggot is still a pejorative in the UK, it's just _also_ a food.
- hprotagonist 7y agoAnd also (by way of `fascis`), a bundle of wood. Quoting etymonline.com here, The explanation that male homosexuals were called faggots because they were burned at the stake as punishment is an etymological urban legend. Burning sometimes was a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (on the suggestion of the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorrah), but in England, where parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense in 1533, hanging was the method prescribed. Use of faggot in connection with public executions had long been obscure English historical trivia by the time the word began to be used for "male homosexual" in 20th century American slang, whereas the contemptuous slang word for "woman" (in common with the other possible sources or influences listed here) was in active use early 20c., by D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, among others. https://www.etymonline.com/word/faggot#etymonline_v_1077 https://www.etymonline.com/word/faggot#etymonline_v_1077
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]