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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   34166 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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I got an automatic red

Rule Violation: Warning for Promoting Hate

The Reddit admin team has been alerted that you’ve violated Reddit’s rule against promoting hate.

Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. We don’t tolerate promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability, and any communities or people that encourage or incite violence or hate towards marginalized or vulnerable groups will be banned.

for using the word "faggot" on /r/4chan , which a few years ago was considered a brotherly greeting. What do regular people think when they get these notices? I remember when the 'wokest' subs like Shitredditsays started enforcing such rules, it was widely mocked. Now the entire site is an experiment in social control. I don't know what happened that we handed these mediocrities the keys to the castle.

I don't agree with censorship and if you're gay, faggot seems pretty normal as a greeting for another gay in the era Im from. Like black people can use the n word.

But I was interested in the origin of faggot, which according to the podcast or article I was listening or reading, I forget which, actually derives from the gays being the first on the fire before the witches were burnt in mediaeval times. The literal meaning is of course 'bundle of sticks', ie kindling.

This would seem to make it a particularly nasty term to use on people outside your in-group, though of course people don't necessarily know the origins of words when they use them...

That always sounded like a folk etymology to me. Does anyone have thorough sources about the word's relation to homosexuals?

Thanks for your skepticism- beware the folk etymology!

Found this on the topic (amongst mostly junk search results, as is the norm)

Some commentators believe that the term "faggot" as applied to homosexuals is derived from the bundles of sticks or "faggots" that were used to burn the heretics. The heretics were easily identified with the fuel used to burn them, for symbolic faggots were in fact embroidered on the garments of those who refused to recant: hence the phrase "to fry a faggot." However, this etymology is probably not correct, because "faggot" as a slang term for a homosexual only occurs in English, and in England homosexuals were never burned at the stake, but hanged, so it is difficult to see how the metaphorical meaning could have arisen.

https://rictornorton.co.uk/homopho4.htm

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