Faggot (slang) - Use in Britain

Use in Britain

Originally confined to the United States, the use of the words "fag" and "faggot" as epithets for gay men has spread elsewhere in the English-speaking world, but the extent to which they are used in this sense has varied outside the context of imported US popular culture. The words "queer", "homo", and "poof" are all still in common use in the UK, and some other countries, as pejorative terms for gay men. The words "fag" and "faggot", moreover, still have other meanings in the British Isles and other Commonwealth societies. In particular, "faggot" is still used to refer to a kind of meatball, and "fag" is common as a slang word for "cigarette".

The terms "fag"/"fagging", have been widely used for a practice of younger pupils acting as personal servants to the most senior boys for well over a hundred years in England, in the public school (United Kingdom) system of education.

Use of fag and faggot as the term for an effeminate man has become understood as an Americanism in British English, primarily due to entertainment media use in films and television series imported from the United States. When Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews was overheard supposedly using the word in a bad-tempered informal exchange with a straight colleague in the House of Commons lobby in November 2005, it was considered to be homophobic abuse.

Read more about this topic:  Faggot (slang)

Famous quotes containing the word britain:

    The proposition that Muslims are welcome in Britain if, and only if, they stop behaving like Muslims is a doctrine which is incompatible with the principles that guide a free society.
    Roy Hattersley (b. 1932)