today I found a facebook.com group about the use of the word "gay" as a synonym for stupid.
http://beloit.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2205049197&ref=mf
It is easy to feel the amount of frustration behind the creation of this site. The site contains two inital obligatory warnings:

"PLEASE NOTE: Topics posted on the discussion board that are intended to just tell us about how "effing gay" we are will be deleted as soon as possible. So don't waste your time and ours. In addition to your inane topic being deleted, you will be both banned and reported. You have been warned. Thanks."

"FOR THE HATERS: The Bible is not an end-all, be-all argument. If you have a genuine point to make, make it, but please don't simply write "This and that is a sin because Chapter Whatever Verse Blah Blah Blah says it is." Argue logically, not childishly."

I fel that these two warnings highlight the divergent group interpretations of this phenomenon: one group of jokers, and the other of those that truely have hate or disdain for gay people.
It seems that this group anticipates a large amount of resistance from these two groups. The way a person talks is apart of their identity. Therefore they feel that they are personally being criticiszed whenever someone challenges their use of this word. People also live by their beliefs, and perhaps find it necessary or fun to express them whenever they have the chance. The warning addressed to the"haters" is very interesting because it anticipates a biblical argument, which the moderator considers childish. I think that it is also notable that the moderator says to argue "logically, not childishly." The moderator is in this statement assuming that this word does not have as strong meaning for those groups that believe the religious argument, as it may those that are gay.

The moderator then presents a nice grammatical argument, which is as follows:

gay /geɪ/ adjective, -er, -est, noun, adverb
–adjective
1. having or showing a merry, lively mood: gay spirits; gay music.
2. bright or showy: gay colors; gay ornaments.
3. given to or abounding in social or other pleasures: a gay social season.
4. licentious; dissipated; wanton: The baron is a gay old rogue with an eye for the ladies.
5. homosexual.
6. of, indicating, or supporting homosexual interests or issues: a gay organization.
–noun
7. a homosexual person, esp. a male.
–adverb
8. in a gay manner.
Synonyms: alert, animate, animated, blithe, blithesome, bouncy, brash, carefree, cheerful, cheery, chipper*, chirpy, confident, convivial, devil-may-care*, festive, forward, frivolous, frolicsome, fun-loving, gamesome, glad, gleeful, hilarious, insouciant, jocund, jolly, jovial, joyful, joyous, keen, light-hearted, lively, merry, mirthful, playful, pleasure-seeking, presuming, pushy, rollicking, self-assertive, sparkling, spirited, sportive, sprightly, sunny, vivacious, wild, zippy


Every facebook group is allowed to upload a picture for its group. This group as uploaded a rainbow flag with the title "Hate Free Zone" on it. This moderator must believe that there is hate behind this new usage of the word "gay" as a synonym for stupid if they have uploaded the picture. However, their argument is based on grammatical evidence. Those that the moderator warns against probably believe that the word "gay" is signified to mean stupid only, and those that believe the religious argument probably believe that the word gay is meant to mean gay, as in a homosexual.

There are 16 group moderators in total, and one moderator that created the site. All of the moderators appear to be highschool students, which i think is really neat. None of their profiles are viewable to be because of privacy settings. I can only read their name, school, and year in school.

The site has another disclaimer that the discussion board has been shut down due to hateful posts. As a researcher, I wish that this wasn;t that case, and I wish that I could get a glimpse of thises hateful posts, but alas they have been deleted, or so the site claims.

There are about 397 topic discussions total, each with their own set of responses. I plan to slowly go through them.
Right now I am about to begin the book "nigger: the strange career of a troublesome word" by Randall Kennedy. I feel that these two sources will inform eachother nicely.

I am particularly interested in the ways that words get their meaning and shift meaning over time.

In the early 90's rap group 2 live crew's album "bad as they wanna be" was banned because of explicit lyrics. Supporters of the group made the distinction betwee the act of signifying and signifyin'. The first being refering to the mode of meaning giving practiced by the dominant group, and the later, the form of meaning giving practiced by black americans, which favors tropes, hyperbole, and loud talking. Thr group was supported heavily by Henry Louis Gates Jr- linguist, academic, professor, and criticised heavily by the 80% white population in florida at the time. Ultimately Gates was trying to say that which Wittgenstein said many years before, and that is that words get their meanings through use. family resemblance words: look the same, mean different things, are very common, especially between different cultural groups living within close proximity to one another....

(breakfast time..making pancakes...2BCont...)