Tag - words from the 80s

  What’s in a word? Letters of course. But there’s more. A word has the power to evoke emotion; beautiful or ugly, inspirational or devastating. In the eighties “gay” was a common descriptor. As in, “Oh my god, those jelly shoes look totally gay with those parachute pants.” A few decades later, while shopping with a friend I said, “This song is so gay.” To which she replied, “Really? It’s homosexual is it?” She worked in an industry populated by gay men and pointed out that using gay as a synonym for stupid or odd was offensive. Prior to her bluntly putting it into context like that, the concept had no relevance for me. I didn’t have any gay friends at the time and wielded this word with complete disregard for the feelings of others. Unintentionally, but ignorantly just the same. Chances are if you were a teen in the eighties or nineties you also threw around such phrases as, “I can’t believe how retarded that movie was.” Or “I look like a retard with this perm.” I was guilty of using it until I suddenly became faced with the reality of the word. I have a sense of humour[…]