Is there a gay accent in English?
Is there a gay accent in English?
As poster SIMBOL suggested in another thread, there is that flamboyant girly accent with rising intonation at the end of every sentence. This accent is spreading from flamboyant gays into the rest of the community and is rather atrocious.
http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t14915-0.htm
Shuimo - with respect, please go home....your Mum has got your tea ready for you.....it's your favourite: smoked River Dee salmon and cucumber wholemeal bread sarnies, best Scottish shortbread, Devon scones with Cornish clotted cream and strawberry jam, Bakewell tarts and a steaming hot mug of Tetley's best brew.
All said in my typical double bass Edinburgh Scottish accent.....
Damian in Edinburgh Thu Nov 12, 2009 4:10 pm GMT
Shuimo - with respect, please go home....your Mum has got your tea ready for you.....it's your favourite: smoked River Dee salmon and cucumber wholemeal bread sarnies, best Scottish shortbread, Devon scones with Cornish clotted cream and strawberry jam, Bakewell tarts and a steaming hot mug of Tetley's best brew.
All said in my typical double bass Edinburgh Scottish accent.....
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What is the matter with you gays?
To gay Damian in Edinburgh:
It is not shameful to be gay, which you seem obviously so proud to be with all your nose-running outpourings of yr gay pride in another thread!
So don't be that sensitive or nervous whenever gays are put under perspective!
Gays as a special specimen of human creatures deserve to be better looked at even from a linguistic pointview!
Why do people, specially in USA, use the word "gay" to discredit things? For example, if something does not like them they say "this or that is gay". That is not politically correct honeys, it's the same as if you use black for the same purposes: Does British English sound black? I'm not fond of the gays, but I don't think it's correct to call things you don't like as gay. If something sounds affected then call it "womanish", because gays are men in the end, arn't they?.
Actually, armada, gay can refer to homosexual women too. Many lesbians actually prefer the term (perhaps because lesbian has become associated with 'lesbian porn' and lipstick lesbians?).
As for the gay accent spreading. While SOME gay men do speak that way, I don't think it's really spreading as you say. More annoying imo is some young men trying to sound overtly boisterous. The rising intonation thing is done by a lot of people, and I find that annoying too.
I'm honoured that Devon scones are known even in Scotland!
There IS a stereotypical gay accent. I'm sure most gays don't speak like that, but the prominent ones on TV DO speak like that, and several prominent ones I've met in REAL LIFE do speak like that. To deny that is to deny reality. Maybe Scottish gays don't do it or something, and that's why Damian denies it. But in Australia, USA and New Zealand I have personally encountered such people. It is an interesting linguistic phenomenon.
<<Why do people, specially in USA, use the word "gay" to discredit things? For example, if something does not like them they say "this or that is gay". That is not politically correct honeys, it's the same as if you use black for the same purposes: Does British English sound black? I'm not fond of the gays, but I don't think it's correct to call things you don't like as gay. If something sounds affected then call it "womanish", because gays are men in the end, arn't they?. >>
Actually you can use 'black' in that sense and it is not deemed un-PC (unless you get a real nut case). For example, you can say "it is a black day for democracy'.
And to call something 'girly' has been a normal disparaging remark since ages ago.
Shuimo: I deny nothing......what is, is in my opinion...and in any case I groaned when I saw your new thread title as I had just spent more time than I could afford about this same theme in the other thread you referred to, after which I said I wasn't going to discuss my sexuality in this Forum any further as it really is inappopriate and of no concern to anyone else anyway.
There's no such thing as a gay accent....as with straight people gay people come in all types and in all ranges of accents and styles of speaking. The ludicrous gay male stereotype of limp wristed high falsetto speech littered with polari is not at all borne out in actual fact. Can you imagine a hunky 17 stone prop forward rugby player who also happens to be gay speaking and conducting himself in that sterotypical way? I know several, and they certainly do not! Neither do the several very masculine looking, and sounding, gay police officers here in Edinburgh I am personally acquainted with...and several more down in London and in other places.
They would be really quite offended - or, knowing them, more likely highly amused, to be very wrongly assumed to have something called a "gay accent".
Only a minority of gay men sound like the late and camp Kenneth Williams or Charles Hawtrey, or the very much alive and much impersonated Julian Clary, who happens to be the son of a London police officer.
I have a distinct Edinburgh Scottish accent, and for my general physical build my voice is quite deep really...you'd never guess that I was gay if you heard me exercise my vocal chords issuing forth my Edinburgh accent....but enough now, enough!
Positively NO more from me on this theme or topic in this Forum ever again!
Goodnight from Scotland....the witching hour is nigh here....just over a quarter of an hour to go...I'm now being called by the God Morpheus and I must obey his orders.
***I'm honoured that Devon scones are known even in Scotland!***
I first sampled them when I went to Glorious Devon on the way down to Cornwall......absolutely DELICIOUS! I could scoff half a dozen at one go....almost. I had more on the way back home again, too.....and you can indeed buy Devon scones in Sainsbury's up here in Scotland you know....and in Tesco and Waitrose I think....the packages are all marked Devon scones. Yummy.
This thread made me LOL. Where does Shuimo come up with this stuff?
I have noticed that benders talk/act even more gay the more alcohol they consume.
There is definately a gay accent and its weird but its the same accent for fags in Thailand as it is in the U.K.
There's no gay accent. Some gay men just like to emulate girly girls. Case solved.
Armada Thu Nov 12, 2009 4:31 pm GMT
Why do people, specially in USA, use the word "gay" to discredit things? For example, if something does not like them they say "this or that is gay". That is not politically correct honeys, it's the same as if you use black for the same purposes: Does British English sound black? I'm not fond of the gays, but I don't think it's correct to call things you don't like as gay. If something sounds affected then call it "womanish", because gays are men in the end, arn't they?.
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Interesting observation you made, Armada!
You aksed a good question!
Why do people, specially in USA, use the word "gay" to DISCREDIT things?
I suppose the same sort of question can be asked of this phenomenon:
Why do people, regardless of time and nations, use WOMEN to DISCREDIT things?
As you are doing actually now, you suggest that "womanish" be the word to refer to sth that sounds affected!
Doesn't this tell us sth deeply ingrained in our male-dominated way of thinking?
If you can figure out answers to this question, then puzzle solved!
respo Thu Nov 12, 2009 8:35 pm GMT
There IS a stereotypical gay accent. I'm sure most gays don't speak like that, but the prominent ones on TV DO speak like that, and several prominent ones I've met in REAL LIFE do speak like that. To deny that is to deny reality. Maybe Scottish gays don't do it or something, and that's why Damian denies it. But in Australia, USA and New Zealand I have personally encountered such people. It is an interesting linguistic phenomenon.
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Respo, could you provide us with some video links featuring what you call "There IS a stereotypical gay accent."
Loads of thanks!