• yucandu@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    They still use “bugger” in the UK, which is basically the same thing but for gay people.

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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      8 days ago

      For years I thought “bugger” just means “to annoy” or something like that, so I would say things like “This buggers me” or “You don’t have to get so buggered about it.”

      Boy am I embarrassed…

      • gmtom@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Kind of? Like you could call a child a “little bugger” and that would just be calling them annoying rather than an arse fucker

      • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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        8 days ago

        Once I used it like that at work, everyone was surprised, and so I looked it up after. I’m actually dead now. This is my ghost typing.

    • DaGreenGobbo@feddit.uk
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      8 days ago

      I’ve never encountered that word used with a homophobic intent, as far as I could tell. If you wanted to express that thought in my youth, other words beginning with B would be far more common. Naturally I found them as odious then as I would now.

        • ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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          7 days ago

          So is “gay”. Language evolves. Being a linguistic originalist would be a hard and eccentric hill to die on.

          • waz@feddit.uk
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            5 days ago

            What? Gay always meant happy, jolly etc. it was repurposed and gets weird if used by its original meaning. My good man, how queer! Just means ‘quite odd’, sounds very old fashioned, but never ever meant anything else. What a gay day!