Kilt, Skirt, MUG, etc.

[KiltedBishop]

Wow...made it to the end! Personally I think the english language is a mess, that is why it is so hard to learn. Our letter groupings sound different in different words, through, rough, bough, and the definitions change. Words have meanings now, that may be different tomorrow. pleat and tartan used to mean different things than they do now. I personally think the big problem with the word "skirt" is it's slang term for a woman/girl.

I am glad everyone enjoys their dictionary but I lost faith in it when I heard the word Nuculear was going in as "a mispronuciation of Nuclear". For me it's just a name, just a word. call it a skirt, a kilt, a love curtain, a penis tent, does it really matter? if the term skirt became accepted as non-sexual *** holes would start calling them dresses...and so on. It is interesting to hear peoples thoughts. I have had it called a skirt, even as a dig and I just say "thanks". The only bad reaction I had was when someone asked why I was wearing a girls dress, I said it was a kilt, or a man-skirt, and I wear because it's comfortable and I could only feel sorry for him that he and his equipment fit well into trousers, me and mine don't. He shut up

Cheers

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

J'Dez,

Glad to help! There is a lot of info on this board, and some very lively discussions. As Rigged pointed out, we have a broad mix of people participating with a broad range of goals/agendas/etc., and Hank and the rest of the Mods do a pretty good job of keeping things on track. I don't always agree with some of the censors, but I do enjoy this board more than most because it rarely degenerates into the sniping and personal attacks that pervade many boards.

KiltedBishop, good point on how difficult English is to learn, and how it keeps evolving. Before gay became synonymous with homosexuality, the original meaning was just happy or with a positive upbeat attitude. Never did understand how it could morph to refer to somebody who was homosexual. Was it that people thought homosexuals were happier than others? Why were heterosexuals referred to as "straight"?

So many questions, so few real answers.

[Kilts_Knave]

Never did understand how it could morph to refer to somebody who was homosexual. Was it that people thought homosexuals were happier than others?

No, I can help out here. Gertrude Stein first used the term in "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," which is also, by the way, where we get the recipe for her wonderful cookies!

[Kilts_Knave]

Oops, wrong story. This one: "Miss Furr & Mrs. Skeene." I was probably asleep in class at the time. The title above refers to Alice and Gertrude.

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

Oops, wrong story. This one: "Miss Furr & Mrs. Skeene." I was probably asleep in class at the time. The title above refers to Alice and Gertrude.

Kiltnave, thanks for the reference, I will have look it up!

[KiltedBishop]

I just called it clothing.

[Tiran]

Never did understand how it could morph to refer to somebody who was homosexual. Was it that people thought homosexuals were happier than others? Why were heterosexuals referred to as "straight"?

I have several books on lanuage, the origin of terms and the history of homosexuality and I have never come across an explanation that made sense for the use of the term gay. I could find only two reference in any of my books. The first is from the book that is the most questionalbe academically. It claims that gay is an evolution of the name Gaia, the greek term for the earth and the titan thereof. The only reasoning given is that the term Lesbian came from the isle of Lebos, in refernce to the poetess Sappho and her school that was located there. Questionable to say the least.
Another claims the term gay was used in the 16th cen. to refer to a promiscous woman, and gay men began using it for themselves in the 1920s, however it does not which of its sources this is from. More logical but still unsupported.
I will have to research the Gertrude Stein refernce.

Straight on the other hand came as the opposite of Bent, one of the better documented historical terms for gay that has fallen out of general use (as well as the title of a play about homosexuals set in Nazi Germany, starring Mick Jagger in the movie version).

There. Not that most of you care I am sure. :grin: Not that I care that you don't care lol :grin: Doesn't bother me in the least. :grin: But if other people can talk about guns, cars, wives and girlfriends, I can talk about language and being gay. :-D

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

Tiran,

Thanks for the follow-up. I am surprised that there is not more information between the word and the connection to homosexuals, and the reasoning behind it considering how recently it was popular. Of course, then again I am always that fag has the same connotation here in the states and in the UK is a cigarette, which makes sense because a ****** historically referred to a bundle of wood, usually burning. It still tickles me to here somebody from the UK ask somebody else for a fag!

[Shay]

Alright, for those interested in the etymology of the word and why it is hurtful, there is a progression shown here. However, I ask that you keep in mind our community is not all straight, and even knowing that certain words mean something else in a different context... doesn't make them totally free of any taint.

Frankly, I'm surprised the language filter doesn't pick that up.

[Kid Cossack]

Gents:

No offense to the purists out there----but I don't limit my understanding of "kilt" to "8 yards of sixteen ounce tartan wool with knife pleats and three leather straps and buckles." That's certainly what a kilt was (recently enough), but few things remain static over the centuries. A good deer rifle in the 1790s was a flintlock single shot .40 caliber Pennsylvania rifle, and a good deer rifle today is a Winchester .30-30 (or whatever). Very different on the face of things, but they do the same thing and they're constructed along the same principles. I've got a 1995 Honda Civic del Sol that differs radically from a Ford Model T. Is it not a car? Or even, an automobile? I live on the Gulf Coast where we get 90/90 days regularly (heat/humidity). A pure-dee full-on traditional simply wouldn't be as good a choice for daily wear.

For me, the full on rig is more of a costume than clothing.

The thread seems to have adopted a side theme as well---about what the trousered think about it, and how to react to it. Hey, I'll tell people it's a kilt---I'll proselytize and propagandize, but really I don't much care what other people think. I like being kilted, and other people mostly seem to like it, and if some idjit wants to call it a skirt well, that's pretty much his glaring deficiencies showing themselves to the world and everyone.

Best,