[Publius]

The “Faggot” is called that because they are notorious for “flaming” and drawing attention to themselves by “flaming.”

Let me disagree with you on this. Some 34 years ago, a homosexual explained to me that the term "faggot" had a different source.

During the Inquisition, when heretics were being burned at the stake, homosexuals were laid on the ground around the heretic and used as sticks for kindling. It is this use of homosexuals' bodies as fuel that inspired the word "faggot".

[xzins]

The word faggot has ALWAYS meant "bundle of sticks" until 19th and 20th century English got ahold of it. Your explanation is categorized as an "urban legend."

From the Online Etymological Dictionary:

The oft-heard statement that male homosexuals were called faggots in reference to their being burned at the stake is an etymological urban legend. Burning was sometimes a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (on the suggestion of the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorrah), but in England, where parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense in 1533, hanging was the method prescribed. Any use of faggot in connection with public executions had long become an English historical obscurity by the time the word began to be used for "male homosexual" in 20th century American slang, whereas the contemptuous slang word for "woman" (and the other possible sources or influences listed here) was in active use. It was used in this sense in early 20c. by D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, among others.

[Oztrich Boy]

Let me disagree with you on this. Some 34 years ago, a homosexual explained to me that the term "faggot" had a different source. During the Inquisition, when heretics were being burned at the stake, homosexuals were laid on the ground around the heretic and used as sticks for kindling. It is this use of homosexuals' bodies as fuel that inspired the word "faggot".

And you actually believed this poof?

• There is NO historical evidence that pathics were treated this way
• The association "faggot=homosexual" originated in early 20^th century America.
• It probably had nothing to do with the Inquisition burning heretics there
• Useage in this way is unknown on the East side of the Pond prior to the late 20^th century - still rare there.
• All European use of the word "faggot", prior to the late 20th Century, is based on the Greek word for "bundled, gathered together"
• c. 1811 in Brit slang use a "faggot" was a man enlisted as a soldier during a muster

[runninglips]

Uhhhhhhhh, human bodies are very hard to burn and are more likely to put a fire out than help to “kindle” one.