Discussion Main / HaveAGayOldTime

Shouldn't this be a Trivia trope? I supopse there's two examples:

• In-universe, where dated language is deliberately used for entendre, which is a proper trope;
• Out of universe, where it's just then-contemporary language in an old film when the term didn't necessarily / universally have another meaning — this should be a trivia entry.

Can we remove the section on the n-word? It reads to me as oddly political and does not justify common use. As an example, "gay" was used as a common slur in my high school years but it certainly would not fall under this trope; it was just normalized hate speech.

Fun fact, Nigger's original definition was simply: "Someone who does not pay taxes." Which I personally get a chuckle from when I hear assholes saying Trump'll get rid of the Niggers since he is one by official definition. XD

"The term used to describe people with life-changing diseases or injuries followed a similar path, from "crippled" to "disabled" to "handicapped"..."

...um, I don't know about the USA but in the UK disabled is considered less offensive than "handicapped". To quote this BBC article ""Handicapped" is a word which many disabled people consider to be the equivalent of nigger. It evokes thoughts of being held back, not in the race, not as good, weighed down by something so awful we ought not to speak of it".

Just wanted to check if this is the other way around in the US or something? Because it cause me a "huh" moment myself.

What happened to the Real Life section?

I've never heard of "Superstar" being used exclusively by Gay men.

Sperm Whales/Moby Dick example shouldn't be here. Sperm whales were called that because the whale fat/blubber that oozed out when harpooned looked like sperm. Sailors then were just as dirty as those now apparently.

A number of those seem to be mostly a matter of media, especially television, sticking to old-fashioned things rather than contemporary more common meanings; basically a lot like the Tetris effect with video games. Bisexual has meant the sexuality since at least the beginning of the 20th century, the blackadder references regarding pumping are certainly correct for the period: the french press of the time did joke about how president Faure "died like Pompey" which is a double entendre for "died pumped" (that the prostitute was also nicknamed "la pompe funèbre" in the press makes no doubt about the understanding.

Basically a similar case happens with gay; theater and generally queer circles understood the word as a euphemism for homosexual/more polite alternative to bugger since the early 20th century at least if not the late 19th century. Spunk has been slang for sperm since the late 19th century (and amusingly, one of its synonyms, mettle, also used to be slang for sperm). We find this a lot; early on, references to pussies were commented on already: pussy has been slang for vagina for long enough that it comes up as jokes in early burlesque in the early 19th century already.

Part of the problem is that the history we have is so purified of everything that we don't quite know entirely how words come about (spunk, for example, is almost a nonsense word with no known etymological origin).

The example under Other, "What can I do you for?" ... I had thought this was an intentional humorous rearrangement of the phrase "What can I do for you?" Doesn't really seem to fit the trope, as it is an intentional Double Entendre...

Should there be some link to superdickery? (http://www.superdickery.com) The "seduction of the innocent" is basically a huge collection of these with old comic book (covers).

Does the use of gay really count? It's still used in the sense used in the posters advertising the gayest comedy. The fact is that it's just gained a second meaning that is separate from the other one and having a gay old time can still be used so it is not a strict example.

Moving this example here for discussion

• I saw a Spanish commercial, which I'm pretty sure was about a man who was perceived to be gay because of a string of unfortunate co-incidences. One shot showed him reading 'Ecce Homo (How One Becomes What One Is)'.

• A Darkwing Duck comic story has him discovering The Mole in SHUSH. When he unmasks him, he says "No longer will you molest us!" Might actually count as Getting Crap Past the Radar if the word's meaning had already changed by this time.

The meaning had changed about 70 years before Darkwing Duck premiered. Sorry, not an example by any stretch of the imagination.

About the "TIRED GAY SUCCUMBS TO DIX IN 200 METERS" example, is that okay here? Or should it be put somewhere else, because those are names we're talking about?

There seem to be two tropes in this article. The one the trope is about - words who's meanings have changed to form cognitive dissonance to modern ears - like Gay.

But a lot of the examples are words which have differing regional meanings. Those examples probably need their own trope — perhaps "Separated by a common language" after the Winston Churchill article alluding to this phenomena.