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My big fat Greek lawsuit Via this blog, comes this awesomely silly story:
The Greek Isle of Lesbos is suing the group Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece to stop using the term Lesbian. Seems they are tired of having the term for people from their isle be synonymous with the followers of Sappho. “Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos,” said Dimitris Lambrou, one of the plaintiffs.
Fantastic. Just imagine how one could play with this. Suppose the town council of Dorking, southern England, sues anyone who is referred to, or uses the pejorative term, “Dork”.
Greece: did not that country once come up with clever chaps like Aristotle or something?
As ever, those interested in silly lawsuits should keep an eye on Overlawyered, an invaluable blog.
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As has been noted elsewhere on t’interweb, shouldn’t they more appropriately (and accurately) be called Lesbosians?
Damn cranky Lesbos. Leave us alone!
Barack Obama sure will be relieved to hear that you can’t be sleazy unless you’re from Silesia.
Come to think of it, we should insist that Greece call itself something else in English. There’s no evidence that any of the original Graeci’s descendants live within its borders.
Thank God Sodom’s off the map.
Doesn’t the term “Lesbosians” sound like something out of a Scott Adams cartoon?
Anyway, I think they’re on to something here. It’s always annoyed me that the homosexuals have usurped the fine old anglo-saxon word “gay”. Who do we sue over that?
Laird, good news, the kids reclaimed the gay word from the homosexuals about a year ago. No one told them to do it either they just got up and did it. What balls!
Now you can say this is gay and that is gay with, well gay abandon and no one can claim it’s a queer thing to say any more.
But make haste with your use of the word gay because the kids are fickle and soon saying something is gay will be totally gay.
I don’t know, but Paree would be among the plaintiffs. So would Gay Talese.
That word is of French origin, not Anglo-Saxon. 🙂
Thanks for correcting me, Ivan. I guess I’ll have to withdraw my complaint now!
I was about to correct my grammar (before someone else did) by revising my first post to read “whom do we sue”, but since I’ve withdrawn the complaint I won’t bother!
Imagine growing up near Booger Den, Mississippi…. Yes, there is such a place.
http://www.mdwfp.com/FORUMS/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=43449
“Anyway, I think they’re on to something here. It’s always annoyed me that the homosexuals have usurped the fine old anglo-saxon word “gay”. Who do we sue over that?”
Well, Laird, I guess it’s annoyed “the homosexuals” that “the heterosexuals” have usurped the fine words bent, queer and so on.
And gay wasn’t the commonest word in early twentieth-century literature, so I think the loss, such as it is, has been very much exaggerated. Language changes and is pretty democratic. There are vastly more straight people than there are gay people, so the blame must lie with them for allowing the usurpation. Sue them. Had they not been so up themselves or so insecure that they couldn’t continue to use the word without embarrassment, we’d still have careless as the primary meaning.
Myself, I use the word gay to mean various different things at different times, and often I do it mischievously (the same with the two meanings of careless). But I expect people to be intelligent enough to keep up.
So don’t complain about the usurpation. Use it yourself and use it for what you think it should mean. That’s exactly what’s happened with schoolchildren using the word to mean naff or dorky. Far from protesting it, I take the new meaning on and play with it.
I dunno, guys, Lesbian on lesbian action? Sounds mighty interesting to this HOG (horny old guy)…