yes. the guy is "half-jewish", i will say. his father is jewish.

i know what "squander" means.

There's a world of difference between "how they're meant to be used" and "how they were formerly used".

"Queer" simply meaning "odd" is so unusual now as to almost constitute an archaic usage in everyday speech. If it hadn't been used as a derogatory term for homosexuals, it might still be in use with it's former meaning. Now it's so loaded with connotations in modern daily speech that the old meaning is no longer available, unless you're clearly speaking an archaic voice: "Zounds, what a queer thing is this!"

"NIce" used to mean foolish, simple, silly, effeminate, trivial, overscrupulous, delicate, refined or dainty. In other usage it meant "apprehending slight differences or delicate distinctions". But if you say it today, it means pleasing, agreeable, satisfying or delightful. If you say somone is "nice", they'll take it as a compliment. If you use the phrase "that's a nice distinction", you're hinting that a former meaning is intended.

What if somone you'd callled "nice" bristled that you'd impugned his masculinity? After all, by your lights above, that's "how the word is meant to be used".

So by "you're such a jew" did you think his mother meant that he was squandering his money?

(I"m desparately trying to avoid a pun about "The Squandering Jew" at this point.)

Well, you can think what you like, of course. The original complaint was not being able to use the words around queer folks for fear they'd take it personally...or conversly insiting on the right to say whatever you like even when you *know* it's likely to be misunderstood, and then blaming your listener for the resulting confusion. Whatever the case, slang continuously assigns new meanings to old words. Probably better get used to it.
Don't think of it as hijacking, think of it as "functional overloading". :-)

No, it's not.

I'm not going to answer the second part, because you used the word in the same way I did.

Hey, dham', you just made post 5000 in IotD.

A milestone, surely. Congrat's...

- NBN

or, unless i was using it to mean odd, like i do. it's not such an uncommon thing to use the word "queer" to mean "odd." really. also, by "the way they were meant" i mean their dictionary definitions, which is what i generally go by.

maggie: yes, i am positive that she meant it in such a way as to suggest that he was squandering his money.

if this is in reference to what i said...

i don't expect it to be misunderstood when i say "queer" around homosexuals. i just think it's stupid that it has been. i don't expect them to assume that it is wrong of me to use such a word in a normal sentence. i don't give a shit if it insults them, because "queer" does not mean "homosexual." and like i have said, if they make a big deal about it i won't apologize for speaking properly. i will blame the listeners for the resulting confusion, because they should know that "queer" originally means "odd" before they use it in any other context. it's really not that hard to pick up a dictionary and look the damned word up.

i understand that not all words are used how the dictionary states they are to be used. we use the word "cool" to describe things that we think are agreeable. that's slang, and that's fine. i think, though, that it is silly for a group of people to get riled up about the use of a certain word that EVERYONE is free to use. the word queer has been adapted. it's not as though i am using it to insult them. my point was that if i want to use a word to describe a situation, someone else should not think that it can only be used to describe a person. that's basically it. i don't mind if people use the word "queer" to describe their sexual preference, really. i couldn't care less. when they tell me that i cannot use it the way it's written out in the dictionary, though, is when it bothers me.

*shrug* Must be some *massive* cultural differences involved, then.

Certainly "You're such a jew, spending your money so freely." sounds to me like it came from some other planet .

But I will acknowlege hearing friends from more southern latitudes (Richmond? Raleigh?) use "queer" to mean "odd" more often. It *will* get you a "queer" look the first time you use it around a Yankee.

But being squarely in the middle of the Bos-Wash axis, up here it's a dead usage...and confusing things further, amongst younger folks up here we sometimes hear "Oh, that just so *gay*!" intended to mean "That is oddly stupid.", which just about brings the whole excursion full-circle.....making current usage of "gay" almost match what you mean when you say "queer".

Pardon me, but yes, it does. See:
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.

to me, maggie. i don't use those words as slang. and i'm from carroll county, maryland. born in DC.

how about the verb "gyp" - ever hear that one? bad racial usage.

My favorite is "niggardly". Remember a few years ago... when some poor (white) guy on the DC city council used the word and hilarity ensued?

<beavis> Heh heh... he said niggardly... heh </beavis>

The only time you need be concerened only with what words mean to you is when you're talking to yourself.

Lexicographers tell us that their work is descriptive rather than prescriptive. I pointed you to a dictionary entry that explains how the word is used by many people today; and you're free to ignore that, of course. But you're not entitled to (in your own words) "bitch" about it if confusion or misunderstanding ensues.

Orwell wrote volumes on the political power of language. I get the feeling that your position is one of politics rather than semantics or diction.

Yeah, that was a mess. The word in fact is not at all derrived from the same roots as "nigger"...it's as least as old a Chaucer. But to use it in the context of DC politics is just plain stupid, it's *asking* for trouble.