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baboon's avatar

This looks like it was written on the back of a fag* packet at 11pm after a boozy night out to be honest...

*British slang for a cigarette before anyone gets upset

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Faith's avatar

Hmmmm . . . I have never heard that term. Origin? Maybe because the original meaning of a "faggot" is a BUNDLE OF SMALL STICKS used for firestarting. A pack of cigarettes looks something like a bundle of small sticks . . . and they also get burned.

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baboon's avatar

I think you are correct Faith.

It's very odd that the word "faggot" is offensive in the US but not in the UK. A faggot typically refers to a meatball made of offal from around the Welsh border:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(food)

I suspect that your etymology is correct.

I highly doubt that anyone would be offended in the UK if you called them a faggot. It would probably get the same strange look as if you called them a "Cornish Pasty" for example. 😀

Interestingly, there is also a subset of UK slang in British prisons, wherein the word "snout" is slang for a cigarette.

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Igor Chudov's avatar

I always like offal

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PersianCat's avatar

If you ever come to the UK, do not call anyone a faggot as they will most certainly be offended.

Just in case anyone was planning on giving it a go.

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Jeremy Poynton's avatar

But do go to a butchers and buy some gorgeous Faggots for supper ;->

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Sandra Barwick's avatar

Nah. It would be hate speech.

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Jeremy Poynton's avatar

Midlands and North. Most butchers make and stock them now. I rather think they are of Northern origin, like Black Pudding which I eat most days for b'fast, with Scramble eggs. But ONLY buy if made with fresh blood. Dry and not good otherwise.

I buy10 packs a time from this farm shop nearby

https://www.kimbersfarmshop.co.uk/sausages/black-pudding/

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baboon's avatar

"Can I nick a fag?"

Translation: "Please can I have one of your cigarettes?"

I can see how UK slang can be confusing, but we understand it perfectly. 😀

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Unacceptable Fringe Minority's avatar

Surely you mean "cadge a fag" or "bum a smoke" ?

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Jeremy Poynton's avatar

Or back in the 60s, "Bum a straight..."

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Faith's avatar

Well, it's no worse than cars "wearing" "bonnets" and "boots"!

. . . and having "windscreens" and "tyres".

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Jeremy Poynton's avatar

Pavements!

Remember, it was our language first!

Churchill on the USA andUK

"Two nations, divided by a common language" :-)

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baboon's avatar

Bonnets and boots are far more elegant than trunks and hoods.

Plus all ships are "female". 😀

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Unacceptable Fringe Minority's avatar

Define "female" , you bigot !

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Unacceptable Fringe Minority's avatar

Super off topic but an ex-submariner told me that submarines are male - what else for a long round tube full of seamen !

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Jim Johnson's avatar

i've heard & used the term as a kid in midwest ~1965.

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baboon's avatar

The Midwest, 1965, when men were men and fags got smoked.

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Jeremy Poynton's avatar

We also eat faggots, meat balls made of offal. Highly nutritious and superb with onion gravy. Vey cheap, the way for even the poorest to feed their family well.

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Jim Johnson's avatar

ok, jeremy. that is over the line. i am having breakfast and just don't need this info. ;)

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Messenger17's avatar

Sounds offal.

I could not resist.

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

It was in my fortune cookie at lunch. The joke was on me...they were serving dog.

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baboon's avatar

Never eating ze pets, never eating ze bugs.

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

Seriously, Humanity is on the Donner Party Plan.

I'm curious to see if there's gonna be any leftovers?....:]

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baboon's avatar

Poor Klaus, No One Who Speaks German Could Be an Evil Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GPEzKp8Tns

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

Die Fart Die?....that's impossible...

My eyes are getting so bad, that's what I thought it said at first.

so stupid...sorry

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DogsLife's avatar

As an aside: The digital game of Scrabble no longer allows use of the word "fag" when it was common before 2020. And it's only one of many "banned" words that you only learn are banned when you have the opportunity to make the word. Tried "squaw" - no go. But what was once not considered is now fine and dandy....like "dildo." Hasbro has taken it upon themselves to censor the word game. I mean seriously - someone complained to the toymaker about words?

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KW NORTON's avatar

Have they banned corporatocracy Yet?

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Cindi's avatar

When I was in high school in early 70s in US a “fag” was a cigarette, nothing more. “Gay” meant “happy”. I think gays back then were just called “homos”, something you never hear anymore.

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baboon's avatar

I can tell you that I grew up in Wales and was subjected to quite horrific bullying, purely because I was English. For some reason they decided that calling me a "gay bastard" or an "English bastard" was the way to go. At no point did they call me a "fag" or a "faggot".

After I had beaten the shit out of most of them (by necessity) they left me alone. For the record, I am and have always been extremely heterosexual.

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Jeremy Poynton's avatar

In North Wales, time was you went into a pub and the Welsh there would switch from English. Better when you had a Welshman with you, as they could translate the insults in real time. Worked a treat :-)

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Unacceptable Fringe Minority's avatar

The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks . . .

;-)

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Cindi's avatar

I’m so sorry you went thru that!

“Gay” didn’t mean in the 70s (@ least in the southwestern part of the US) what it means now. Maybe “<nationality> bastard” (eg being English in Wales) was a thing?

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baboon's avatar

Xenophobia for sure, which is why I hate racism so much. It's completely senseless.

But no, they were trying to mock me by saying I was a homosexual as well, there is zero doubt about that.

This was in the 90s.

And thank you. Yes, it was horrible and totally destroyed my confidence for several years.

I suspect it was jealousy. Turns out I'm a "chad". 😀

Most of those losers died of drug overdoses ten years ago or more, so whatever.

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PersianCat's avatar

In Southern England in the late 1980s / early 1990s the insults that were thrown around at school were -

"gay" or "you're so gay" - I had no idea at that time what it meant.

"retard" and "spastic"

I apologise in advance for any offence caused and I don't use these words any more.

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Cindi's avatar

O, ok, totally different generation then, so in the 90s those terms were in use.

I will further show my ignorance in not knowing what a “Chad” is 😂 Do tell!

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baboon's avatar

This makes me sound like a total douche bag after the sympathy I may have garnered but....

Tim Pool covered a story where dating sites released information regarding who was getting what.

It transpired that 20% of men were getting 80% of women. The remaining 80% of beta males were getting the 20% of women the "chads" didn't want.

If you look this up on the Interwebz you will mainly find "debunking" sites saying this isn't true, but it is true.

I can't even explain the pain I have experienced over the years because of this. None of this is "cool" or in any way what I wanted...

- Girl I thought was my friend grabbing me and snogging me in front of my GF at a house party, (then running down the street after my GF to say it wasn't my fault; she competed in half-marathons, running after her at 6am was no joke!)

- Going to party. Several women make a pass at me. Explain I have no interest due to having a GF. Multiple women literally expose their boobs and invite me to lick Nutella off their nipples - WTF? This is in front of female friends I have known for years, who were horrified.

- Hot work colleague picks up on the fact that I am depressed because GF has gone to Peru to teach English for a few months - throws herself at me anyway

- Be in casual relationship with two girls (they know it's casual) - watch these two women beat the crap out of each other over ME - in the meantime, another girl asks if we can leave the pub and go back to her place!

I swear to god some women are mental.

This is just the tip of the iceberg btw.

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Cindi's avatar

TMI Baboon 😆

I’m not a guy but it sounds like the kind of problem a lot of men would like to have. And w/ all of the betas out there, maybe it’s bringing out the mental for some 🤔

So it’s sexual harassment then, something attractive women have put up w/ for millennia. But you’re not a potted plant; if the behavior truly pains you, you just need a pithy or indignant response to put such boorish aggression in its place 🤷🏼‍♀️

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Sandra Barwick's avatar

Now gay has developed yet another new meaning - it is used by pupils in English state schools as an insult, meaning weak and effete. This rouses the fury of those policing hate speech. Which amuses the naughty pupils.

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Jeremy Poynton's avatar

Just another word in the eternal cycle of kid's slang... more a poke in the ribs, I think, than anything else. Like most kids' slang

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Cindi's avatar

“That’s so gay” has been around a good while, meaning what you say, Sandra, weak & effete

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Faith's avatar

Hi Cindi!

In what state did you go to high school? East coast?

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Janet's avatar

I live in the Midwest. I heard that referencing cigarettes from when I was a teen in the 60’s.

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Cindi's avatar

Yeah, I don’t think that particular term was regional in the US, at least back in the 60s-70s.

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Cindi's avatar

Hi Faith, 🌞Arizona 🌵. You?

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Faith's avatar

Grew up in Los Angeles. Now I have "evacuated" to Far Northern California . . a "different world"!

I just bought a baby yak and brought her home today, got her settled in then discovered one of my llamas had just given birth! Meanwhile, the other llamas and the goats are all trying to figure out what this new fuzzy black thing is!

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Igor Chudov's avatar

They are the cutest!

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Cindi's avatar

That certainly IS a different world but still f’d up Cali ☺️

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Faith's avatar

The crazy Commie Dems should just move to China (or North Korea) and leave California for the rest of us. There actually are a lot of Conservative Counties here. It's L.A., S.F., etc., that ruin it.

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Cindi's avatar

Yes of course - if you shaved off the far north & then the interior to the eastern state line, you’d have the state of “Jefferson”, leaving SF, LA to San Diego as “California”. Never thought SD would go woke but the reconstitution of masks for school kids has poked the hornet nest nationally because those of us in f’ing blue states see all that coming back for us too

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Cindi's avatar

*reinstitution

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Faith's avatar

I know! But the climate is so much better here. I don't want to live in a colder (or hotter!) climate.

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Unacceptable Fringe Minority's avatar

"And Mike Bassett has named Benson and Hedges as members of the England team"

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