gay young blade

English translation: dashing young man

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)

English term or phrase:	gay young blade
Selected answer:	dashing young man
Entered by:	Veronica Costea

15:24 Aug 7, 2005

English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature

English term or phrase: gay young blade

"Japanese literature moved form idle quips directed at the oddities of the West to Symbolist poetry, form the thousandth told tale of the gay young blade and the harlots to the complexities of the psychological novel"
The fragment refers to the state of Japanese literature prior to the Meiji restoration and "gay young blade" bit must be some allusion to a story of the time.
Does anyone have any idea what the allusion is made to?
ps. Not to mention that I cannot decide what blade means here and whether gay refers to happy or to homosexual

Veronica Costea KudoZ activity Questions: 171 (2 open) (3 without valid answers) (8 closed without grading) Answers: 378 Canada
Local time: 21:02

dashing young man

Explanation:
The adjective "gay" was not applied to homosexuals until about 10 years ago.

blade bleyd
A dashing young man
"gay young blades bragged of their amorous adventures"
http://wordwebonline.com/en/BLADE

Selected response from:

Kim Metzger
Mexico
Local time: 19:02

Grading comment

Thank you all for your very interersting explanations :-)
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED

4 +14

dashing young man

Kim Metzger

4 +4

irresponsible young man

Nick Lingris

party-boy

NancyLynn

clarifications about gay

flipendo

Answers

3 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +14

dashing young man

Kim Metzger
Mexico
Local time: 19:02
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 277

Grading comment

Thank you all for your very interersting explanations :-)

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)

agree

NancyLynn: around here, gay meant homosexual as far back as the 70s, but the language in this text is much more old-fashioned than that. at any rate, it's a young man, unmarried but not homosexual.

2 mins

-> Yes, "10 years ago" was a mistake. I'm not sure exactly when it started, but 30 or 40 years ago would be closer.

agree

Alexander Demyanov

14 mins

agree

Vicky Papaprodromou

18 mins

agree

Nancy Arrowsmith: could also be bisexual, but not homoxesually gay in the modern sense

34 mins

agree

Kirill Semenov: in Japan, there was a type of too brave young Samurais who were too eager to prove themselves and even sought for a chance to make themselves seppuku (harakiri)

41 mins

agree

Refugio: "Irresponsible" would be a value judgement, not part of the inherent meaning.

43 mins

agree

David Knowles

44 mins

agree

Tony M: But, oh dear, Kim, you're SO wrong about 'gay'! It has been used to describe us since AT LEAST the early part of the 20th century!

1 hr

-> Thanks, Dusty - it was a careless mistake: "The term is in fact much older, being used by homosexuals to refer to themselves with certainty as early as the 1920s, and possibly as early as the 1860s". http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorg.htm

agree

Rachel Fell

1 hr

agree

Aleron

2 hrs

agree

Robert Donahue (X): Uh huh, just like Zorro the gay blade. www.imdb.com/title/tt0083366/

2 hrs

agree

Nigel Jones: totally agree, nothing to do with homosexuality

14 hrs

agree

Saleh Chowdhury, Ph.D.

22 hrs

agree

Alfa Trans (X)

1 day 2 hrs

agree

Tegan Raleigh: gay=jolly, whimsical, especially since here there is an affiliation with harlots. my OED says a blade is a "dashing, pleasure-seeking fellow"

1 day 7 hrs

disagree

muitoprazer (X): a gay young blade is a young man probably of means,certainly of looks and charm,a society gad about with a predatory attitude to young women.a good fin de siecle example would be dorian gray,eponymous hero of the novel by oscar wilde,theportrait of ..

2 days 23 hrs

4 mins confidence:

party-boy

Explanation:
I don't know the Japanese allusion, but I do know that if the English has a gay young blade alongside harlots, these two being somewhat old-fashioned terms, one being the ladies of the night and the other being the young bachelor-about-town, there are no homosexuals in this text.

NancyLynn
Canada
Local time: 21:02
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 75

5 hrs confidence:

clarifications about gay

Explanation:
gay
1178, "full of joy or mirth," from O.Fr. gai "gay, merry," perhaps from Frank. *gahi (cf. O.H.G. wahi "pretty"). Meaning "brilliant, showy" is from c.1300. OED gives 1951 as earliest date for slang meaning "homosexual" (adj.), but this is certainly too late; gey cat "homosexual boy" is attested in N. Erskine's 1933 dictionary of "Underworld & Prison Slang;" the term gey cat (gey is a Scot. variant of gay) was used as far back as 1893 in Amer.Eng. for "young hobo," one who is new on the road and usually in the company of an older tramp, with catamite connotations. But Josiah Flynt ["Tramping With Tramps," 1905] defines gay cat as, "An amateur tramp who works when his begging courage fails him." Gey cats also were said to be tramps who offered sexual services to women. The "Dictionary of American Slang" reports that gay (adj.) was used by homosexuals, among themselves, in this sense since at least 1920. Rawson ["Wicked Words"] notes a male prostitute using gay in reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostitutes) in London's notorious Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889. Ayto ["20th Century Words"] calls attention to the ambiguous use of the word in the 1868 song "The Gay Young Clerk in the Dry Goods Store," by U.S. female impersonator Will S. Hays. The word gay in the 1890s had an overall tinge of promiscuity -- a gay house was a brothel. The suggestion of immorality in the word can be traced back to 1637. Gay as a noun meaning "a (usually male) homosexual" is attested from 1971.

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Note added at 5 hrs 33 mins (2005-08-07 20:58:15 GMT)
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As for the expression \"young blade\", here is another reference:

8. a dashing, swaggering, or jaunty young man: a gay blade from the nearby city.
I don\'t think it\'s got to do with homosexuality.

online etymology dictionary

flipendo
Local time: 04:02
Works in field
Native speaker of:

Greek

9 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +4

irresponsible young man

Explanation:
blade = A gallant, a free-and-easy fellow, a good fellow; generally familiarly laudatory, sometimes good-naturedly contemptuous. (The original sense is difficult to seize: Bailey 1730 says: a bravo, an Hector; also a spruce fellow, a beau; Johnson: a brisk man, either fierce or gay, called so in contempt.') (Now colloquial or slangy: in literature, chiefly a reminiscence of the eighteenth century.)
[Source: OED]

The meaning of 'gay' ranged between carefree and debauched.

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Note added at 10 mins (2005-08-07 15:35:25 GMT)
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From NO TIME FOR MURDER (1944)
\"Two,\" replied Jeremy. \"The elder, Gregg, is highly reliable, but I must confess that Dave is utterly irresponsible.\"
\"A gay, young blade, perhaps?\"
\"They called them such in our time, Twambley. Nowadays I understand they term them stinkers.\"

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Note added at 39 mins (2005-08-07 16:04:03 GMT)
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Since the dating of \'gay\' meaning homosexual has also been brought up:
It first came into general usage in the 1950s, and seems to have arisen from an earlier American slang term \'gay cat\', which originally denoted a young male tramp who was the companion of an older tramp. The implications of a homosexual relationship which this carried had led by the 1930s to the use of \'gay cat\' for any young male homosexual, and the application of \'gay\' to \'homosexual\' was probably generalized from this.
Dictionary of Word Origins, John Ayto -- again]

In the OED:
Of a person: homosexual. Of a place: frequented by homosexuals. slang.
1935 N. Ersine Underworld & Prison Slang 39 Geycat, a homosexual boy.
1951 E. Lambert Sleeping-House Party vii. 74 In a way it was an odd threesome. It occurred to me that Esther rather hung round our two gay boys.

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Note added at 1 hr 34 mins (2005-08-07 16:59:31 GMT)
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As Ruth has indirectly disagreed with my use of \'irresponsible\' for \'gay\', let me give OED\'s definition and relevant examples for the use of the word in those days:

gay.
2. Addicted to social pleasures and dissipations. Often euphemistically: Of loose or immoral life. Esp. in gay dog, a man given to revelling or self-indulgence; gay Lothario: see Lothario.
1754 Adventurer No. 124 The old gentleman, whose character I cannot better express than in the fashionable phrase which has been contrived to palliate false principles and dissolute manners, had been a gay man, and was well acquainted with the town.
1791 Burke Let. to Member Nat. Assembly Wks. VI. 36 The brilliant part of men of wit and pleasure, or gay, young, military sparks.
1798 Ferriar Illustr. Sterne ii. 40 The dissolute conduct of the gay circles in France is not of modern date.
1847 H. Rogers Ess. I. v. 214 For some years he lived a cheerful, and even gay, though never a dissipated life, in Paris.
1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. vi. II. 103 The place was merely a gay suburb of the capital.
1851 Mayhew Lond. Labour I. 382 The principal of the firm was what is termed \'gay\'. He was particularly fond of attending public entertainments. He sported a little as well, and delighted in horse-racing.
1891 E. Peacock N. Brendon I. 302 This elder Narcissa had led a gay and wild life while beauty lasted.
1897 J. Hutchinson Archives Surg. VIII. 224 My patient was a married man, who admitted having been very gay in early life.
1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. ii. I. 196 On the vices of the young and gay he looked with aversion.

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Note added at 19 hrs 47 mins (2005-08-08 11:11:38 GMT)
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As an afterthought: The modern term for a gay young blade would be *playboy* (New Oxford Dictionary: a wealthy man who spends his time enjoying himself, especially one who behaves irresponsibly or is sexually promiscuous).
As in here: Gay = Homosexual. In the 17th century the term was expanded from its earlier meaning of cheerful to refer to *men with a reputation for being playboys* (gay Lothario first appeared in 1703). By the early 1800s, it was further expanded to refer to women with a reputation for sexual promiscuity. The term was first self-applied in the early 20th cent. By the 1970s, it was a standard, non-slang synonym for homosexual.

Nick Lingris
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:02
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

Greek
PRO pts in category: 44

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English translation: dashing young man

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