OFF: Brit Slang!

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 12:31:44PM +0100, M Holmes typed out:
> Doug Pearson writes:
>
> > On Thu, 8 Aug 2002 11:10:05 -0700, John H. McCartney <scorch at TE-CATS.COM>
> > wrote:
> > >My suspicion is that the term "fag" in reference to cigarettes comes
> > >from the word "faggot", which originally was in reference to a stick,
> > >as in "a bundle of faggots". That usage dates back to the middle ages.
> > >I figure that cigs are somewhat sticklike.....
> >
> > Entirely correct.  Specifically, it refers to a sticks bundled together for
> > the purpose of burning (which, of course, is what you do to a cigarette) in
> > a stove or fireplace.
> >
> > >As to how faggot got it's present connotation I've no idea.
> >
> > It's because of what was done to those people in particularly brutal,
> > closed-minded societies.
>
> Doubtful. The word fag is also used in Britain's public schools. Older
> boys have younger boys who "fag" for them. This may have involved
> fetching cigarettes at some point but I don't know. Given the reputation
> of public schools for homosexuality, the leap from being the fag of an
> elder boy isn't too hard to imagine.

        I must protest, with a twinge of middle-class guilt for my
background, that only a very few schools still have fags or similar
systems. Certainly mine didn't and the only ones I know of that still do
are Eton and Harrow, which despite their disproportionate hold on the
ruling class ain't the whole public school system by a very long way.

        `Fag', in that context, would best be translated as a noun like
`gopher'; I believe they're supposed to do your laundry for you, ensure
there's a fire in your room and stuff like that. Rudyard Kipling's _Stalky
and Co._ is a fine fine glimpse of that sort of schooling. But it's really
not like that any more.

        On the other hand it is well-known among those who did go to my
more laid-back sort of public school that all-boarding schools are full of
perverts so who knows, really... :-)

> Of course alt.usage.english may have a much better explanation.

        They would be the people to ask, most certainly. Yours,
                                                                Jon

ObCD: Roky Erickson and the Explosives - _Casting the Runes_
--
        Jonathan Jarrett                Birkbeck College, London
                 jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
        --------------------------------------------------------
  "The large print giveth and the small print taketh away." (Tom Waits)