Talk:Fag
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What's the feeling? Should fag and faggot have different pages or should one redirect to the other? Also, anyone want to help out with this entry? --Dante Alighieri
Not just American teens - and fag can be used against non homosexuual people - i was apparently a "fag" for being disabled
Haven't people ever heard a cigarette called a fag? Perhaps that should be in here somewhere?
- It was, and is again. There was some vandalism and a bit got lost, but it's back now! --Dante Alighieri 12:20 Dec 5, 2002 (UTC)
Yes, I believe Europeans sometimes call cigarettes "fags".
No in Europe generally. It's a British and Irish term. Mintguy 12:47 Dec 5, 2002 (UTC)
- That is, of course, the basis for the joke about the two possible meanings of the phrase "I'm going to go smoke some fags." --Dante Alighieri 12:28 Dec 5, 2002 (UTC)
And I think "faggot" is some sort of a plant?
- I've heard "faggot" defined as a bundle of sticks, but I wasn't sure that it was appropriate for this entry. --Dante Alighieri 12:20 Dec 5, 2002 (UTC)
-
- "faggot" is actually an imperial measure for sticks.
- 1 short faggot of sticks = 2 ft. girth x 32 in. long bundle of short wood sticks/billets
- 1 long faggot of sticks = 2 ft. girth x 4 ft. long bundle of long wood sticks/billets
-
- 1 faggot of iron = 2 ft. girth x 1 ft. long bundle of iron/steel rods/bars for horseshoes & so forth
- But I guess that's for faggot and not fag. -- User:Nferrier
- In Britain you can buy a product called "Brain's faggots". Brain's (Brain's website) is the brand name, I don't know of any other manufacturer Faggots are basically meatballs.
Regarding the usage in British schools... a fag is one who fags? Verb and noun? --Dante Alighieri 01:06 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)
- Yes, I could (if I was a senior boy in an English public school like Eton or Harrow) have a fag. He would be a junior boy (probably a first year) and he would fag for me. He would be doing fagging duties for (maybe) several hours a day or only a few minutes a week depending on how mean I was.
-
- So your fag could go fag for you by getting you some fags? You crazy Brits! ;) --Dante Alighieri 01:13 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)
-
-
- You're getting it. And if you think that's strange wait until you hear about "dog" as in "I say you old dog, it's the dog on the dog." -- User:Nferrier
-
-
- OK, give me a sentence with as many fags and dogs as possible. --Dante Alighieri 01:18 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)
-
-
- I say you old dog, get on the dog to my fag and get him to make his dog to bring me some fags.
- Trans: friend, telephone my menial assitant and ask him to make his girlfriend (note: presumably another boy given the public school system, but not necessarily) bring me some cigarettes.
-
-
- I don't know whether to be frightened or impressed. :) --Dante Alighieri 01:26 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)
Right now, the article implies that "fag" and "faggot" are not used in British English as pejorative terms for male homosexual. Is that correct? AxelBoldt 21:11 Mar 16, 2003 (UTC)
"Faggot" certainly has this meaning in England (with meatballs and bundles of firewood as still current, but slightly old-fashioned senses). "Fag" is understood as "cigarette" when spoken by a Brit, but is recognized in the US sense when spoken by an American. -- Heron
I'm reverting to the version before Deb removed the faggot sections as I believe that they belong in the article. The only edit since then is an edit that is made obsolete by the revert. --Dante Alighieri 02:07, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
It's good to see that this entertainingly overloaded word is still provoking discussion.
I don't believe this about fag-end. I think the use of "fag-end" to mean useless thing comes from the understanding of fag as a cigarette. What could be more useless than the last bit of cigarette? for a smoker it's the most depressing thing to have to go through your ashtray trying to find fag ends that could possibly be reused.
Any other possible genesis for fag?
- As 'fag-end' is seventeenth century, and was used to refer to the flapping end of a piece of cloth, I doubt that it ahs anything to do with cigarettes or bundles of sticks... Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:17, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Maybe the Yiddish Feygele? It means the same and sounds similar.
- I thought that 'feygele' meant (literally) 'little bird'? It ceryainly doesn't mean 'useless thing'. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:59, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
---
>In the United Kingdom a faggot (never abbreviated to 'fag') is a dish made of chopped meat and herbs, rolled into a ball and fried.
- Why is the UK definition of "faggot" included here if it's never abbreviated as "fag"?? Moncrief 07:47, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Why were 'Origins' removed?
Hmm, I think there was nothing wrong with 'Origins' I wrote (with IP 80.99.141.102).. Why did you remove it? I learn British Civilisation, and we learnt it from a British guy (and it's in our book as well). It's a fact. I didn't use any bad words or things like that in it.
[edit] "Now"
Some editors seem to think that "faggott" and "fag" were once used non-pejoratively of homosexuals. Could they provide some reason for this before reinserting "now" into the text? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:51, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Style guidelines for disambiguation
First off, let's cover what a disambiguation page is for. It exists, not to define terms, but to allow a reader to quickly select between a list of sources of more information. Thus, the goal is to give as little information as possible while resolving ambiguity.
Why very little information? Well, in my opinion, this is because information on a disambiguation page isn't going to see the same level of scrutiny and debate that focused, well defined topic articles will.
Ok, now on to the official guidelines as stated at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages):
- Don't include dictionary definitions
- Don't wikilink any other words in the line (emphasis from source)
- Don't pipe (alter the link text of) the name of the links to the articles being listed (emphasis from source, parenthetical mine)
These three rules of disambiguation are violated several times in the body of this article. My edit was really not perfect at all, as I preserved two violations on the line I edited (while removing several) and left all of the other lines alone. I'll correct that, and turn this into a real disambiguation page.
Reverting my change seems counter-productive in the extreme, as you are supporting the poorly maintained content of this page. If you want some particular concept to be covered in the definition / history / explanation of a particular meaning of the word fag, then you should probably edit the appropriate page for that particular meaning. -Harmil 04:01, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
- You seem not to have read the whole text; the guidelines are only suggestions, and editors can "violate" them if that's appropriate in the circumstances: "For every style suggestion above, there's some page which has a good reason to do something else. These guidelines are intended for consistency, but usefulness to the reader is the principal goal. So ignore these guidelines if you have a good reason."
- You left an inaccurate and misleading gloss of the term; I reverted to the (very slightly longer) accurate version. That doesn't warrant all this fuss, and certainly doesn't constitute "supporting the poorly maintained content" of the page. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:44, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
-
- I've just seen your latest edit, which had to be reverted for a number of reasons. First, "the original term for meat, cloth or sticks" is not only incorrectly punctuated, it's completely false; "fag" has never been the term for meat, cloth, or sticks. Secondly, the usage "servant" includes the derived "Something that requires a lot of effort could be described as a fag"; without that gloss, the reader won't know which of the articles linked to covers that usage. Thirdly, the entry concerning the slang term for a homosexual was again misleading, and needed expanding. Fourthly, s there's (as yet) no article for FAG Kugelfischer, there can be no harm in explaining "ball bearing". Finally, the "see also section" does no harm, and could be helpful to th reader. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:54, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
As I understand it, the origin of the term "fag" as referring to homosexual is related to cigar smoking. A cigar, it seems, is something smoked by men. A fag, referring to a small cigar (which takes it's connotation fron the "fag" meaning small kindling ... i.e. small things that smoke). "Real men" smoke cigar, women (and effem. men) smoke the smaller "twig" fags (i.e. cigarettes).
