Oh, the hugh manatee! Don’t tell me he also used “niggardly” ... he’d have to be shot!
It wouldn’t make any sense to describe the European financial crisis as “so gay”.
Those limey’s have the strangest names for things. Whoops!!!
Ironically, Peston always comes across on the BBC as a bit camp himself.
What a fag!
“not quite homophobic but a bit homo-frowny’”
Homo-frowny?
If you've read any 19th c. English fiction, it's obvious that this expression has nothing to do with homosexuals. Conan Doyle, Kipling, Rider Haggard, Dickens, and I think Trollope all used "he'll find himself in Queer Street" to mean that somebody was getting himself into trouble.
Often financial, but not always. The constable in "The Adventure of the Second Stain" was in trouble because he let a woman into a crime scene (of course she was an associate of the spy who hid the stolen letter in the secret compartment under the carpet . . . . fortunately Sherlock Holmes was up to the game.)
Kipling also used the term "queer as Dick's hatband" in a short story, "The Dog Hervey". It often means physically ill, but can also mean a little bit crazy.
Queer just doesn't mean what it used to mean. Some of us haven't caught up yet.