Re:
_http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080430/ap_on_re_eu/greece_lesbian_pride_
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080430/ap_on_re_eu/greece_lesbian_pride)
"Three islanders from Lesbos - home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised
love between women - have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word
lesbian in its name. One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the name of
the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, "insults the
identity" of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians."
Andre Sytnyk asks:
>>Won't the 'lesbian > gay' inference go through in most people's cognitive
environments irrespective of the speaker's intention - even when the
respective >>PCI is 'lesbian > resident of Lesbos'?
Well, I would, after Levinson, symbolise that as: "lesbian" +> FEMALE +
HOMOSEXUAL. I would not use 'gay' at all, unless you imagine a Gayland that gays
are resident of -- see below quotes for 'LesBiGay'. I claim that in 'LesBiGay'
the explicature of 'lesBi' is cancelled _unless_ we assume a locus for
'gays' too (I always thought Bulgaria was such place, but the opinions diverge),
and Bi ("Bicaragua"?). Incidentally, "LesBiGay" is interestingly
implicaturally, since the neologism is really a political manifesto, denying that "Bi" is
defined by "Les" and "Gay" _plus_ Straight. (Cf. the idiosyncratic procedure,
"If you are bi, you are [at least] gay -- never mind 'straight'". In
symbols, 'bi' +> gay; or 'bi' +> lesbie. Most people are essentialists at heart and
don't accept such idiosyncratic procedures, though).
My reference to the 'dictionary definition' was intended as Gricean and
jokey. Grice once complained to Austin, "I don't care what the dictionary says",
"And that's where you make your big mistake", Austin replied. Chapman retells
the story that once Grice did go through the dictionary, "I'm feeling ...",
he was discussing. Oddly, he never reached the 'l' (of 'lesbian') or 'g' (of
'gay'), but, Chapman tells us:
"Grice gave up towards the end of the B, on discovering that the verb would
tolerate 'Byzantine'." (p. 62), which is _not_ that far away from Lesbia. The
Queen of England [sic, +> Great Britain and Northern Ireland] is reported --
in the Oxford Dict. of Quotations to have asked at a cocktail party, upon
introduction to the Ambassador of Greece:
"You are, I expect, Athenian."
"No, ma'am, I'm a Lesbian". -- and he did not use capital "L", but the Queen
got the 'implicature'.
My favourite defense of the conventionality of "+HOMOSEXUAL -MALE" comes
from this joke where a cowboy, tired of always being asked whether he is a real
cowboy' finds this lesbian at the bar, and she describes that she is a _real_
one, and goes on to explain how she feels from morning to night ("can't take
women out of my mind"). Upon which, the cowboy assumes he is no longer a real
cowboy but a real lesbian. For Grice, we would have here a idiosyncratic
procedure,
"This cowboy, upon uttering 'lesbian', thereby 'means' "GYNO-TROPIC'
for lack of better word.
There is no reference to 'same-sex' or even 'female' in the semantic
predicates _he_ chooses to define 'lesbian'. Personally, since I'm such a fan of
Alma-Tadema (the Frisian painter, "Bread butter and green cheese is very good
English and very good cheese") I always assume 'lesbian' to mean,
implicaturally, 'lover of Alkaios', and most of my friends who look at the oil agree.
What a pose!
Compare this three islanders with the OED quotes, and imagine which quote
would fit what I would call a trio of idiosyncratic procedurers (poor souls)
who are only trying to defend Grice's and Austin's 'obdurate literalism' --
They go _without_ the dictionary definitions which can only CONFUSE the serious
student of pragmatics. Quotes are good, but let us remember that it all
started with Liddell and Scott, and _they_ have "Lesbiazo" as a verb, which they
analyse in terms of _enjoy fellatio as an agent_. Dover has analysed this and
other terms, notably, 'lakonizo' (to laconize') meaning a resident of Sodomah,
or Bulgaria. The Greeks, like Humpty Dumpty, had a thing for verbs, and if
they could get hold of my grandmother, they would verbalise her too.
The first quote (in the 'modern' language of England) is:
1601 S. DANIEL To Sir T. Egerton 131
That Lesbian square, that building fit, Plies to the worke, not forc'th the
worke to it.
1605 TIMME Quersit II. ii. 111
The composition and wonderful nature thereof is, as it were, a certaine
example and Lesbian rule of our worke.
1606 SYLVESTER Du Bartas II. iv. II. Magnif. 1117
Another, leveld by the Lesbian Squire Deep under ground (for the Foundation)
joyns Well-polisht Marble.
1628 PRESTON New. Covt. (1630) 233
Thou goest not by a straight rule, but by a leaden Lesbian rule.
1703 ROWE Ulysses II. i. 945
The Chian and the Lesbian Grape.
1711 W. KING tr. Naude's Rej. Politics v. 188
It [artificial, politic Justice] is soft and pliant enough to accommodate
itself as the Lesbian rule to human and popular weakness.
1724-41 CHAMBERS Cycl. s.v.
Cymatium, Lesbian cymatium, according to Vitruvius, is what we otherwise
call talon.
1775 E. BARRY Observations Wines of Ancients vi. 99
The best Greek Wines, the Chian, Lesbian, Coan, &c. were equally prepared in
the same manner.
1824 A. HENDERSON Hist. Anc. & Mod. Wines I. viii. 123
The dessert-wines most commonly mentioned as in use among the Greeks are the
Thasian and Lesbian.
1846 R. FORD Gatherings from Spain xiv. 163
Manzanilla..may be compared to the ancient Lesbian, which Horace quaffed so
plentifully in the cool shade, and then described as never doing harm.
1890 BILLINGS Med. Dict. II. 47/1
Lesbian love, tribadism.
1892 C. G. CHADDOCK tr. Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis v. 429
We are indebted to Parent-Duchalet..for interesting communications
concerning Lesbian love.
1931 R. CAMPBELL Georgiad i. 13
No Lesbian governess had got the start of him.
1933 H. S. WALPOLE Vanessa IV. 781
She disliked people to take it for granted that unless she was Lesbian she
was uninteresting.
1972 Jrnl. Social Psychol. LXXXVII. 52,
50 adult female respondents who would define themselves..as being Lesbian or
homosexual or both.
1974 Ms July 118/1
Testimony from a group of bright articulate lesbians covering: lesbian
sexuality, problems of lesbian mothers..and the lesbian lifestyle.
1892 D. H. TUKE Dict. Psychol. Med. II. 865/2
For many years a whole literature of romance and plays has been occupied in
the description of Lesbic love, to the great damage of girls and neuropathic
women.
1922 JOYCE Ulysses 205
Sons with mothers,..lesbic sisters, loves that dare not speak their name.
1940 J. O'HARA Pal Joey 175,
I am all set to be m.c. in a crib where the Lesbos even come and watch the
dress rehearsals.
1969 C. HIMES Blind Man with Pistol xiii. 145
‘One was a man; a good-looking man at that.’ ‘Man my ass, they were lesbos.’
1970 S. ELLIN Man from Nowhere liv. 271,
I don't dig Lesbies.
1925 A. HUXLEY Let. 21 Apr. (1969) 246
After a third-rate provincial town, colonized by English sodomites and
middle-aged Lesbians, which is, after all, what Florence is, a genuine metropolis
will be lively.
1936 C. DAY LEWIS Friendly Tree i. 23,
I shall never write real poetry. Women never do, unless they're invalids or
Lesbians or something.
1940 ‘G. ORWELL’ Inside Whale 132
Gruff-voiced Lesbians in corduroy breeches..could walk along the streets
without attracting a glance.
1947 E. TAYLOR View of Harbour x. 170
‘I think I look like a Lesbian,’ Beth said doubtfully.
1973 [see HOMOSEXUAL a.].
1870 A. J. MUNBY Diary 2 May in D. Hudson Munby (1972) 283
Swinburne..expressed a horror of sodomy..and an actual admiration of
Lesbianism, being unable..to see that that is equally loathsome.
1895 A. DOUGLAS Let. in H. M. Hyde Trials Oscar Wilde (1948) 360
Thus in England there are no laws against ‘Lesbianism’ or intercourse of an
erotic character between women, and yet there are several women in London
whose friendship with other women does carry a taint and a suspicion, simply
because these women are obviously ‘sapphic’ in their loves.
1897 H. ELLIS Stud. Psychol. Sex I. iv. 82
Casanova remarked that the women of Provence are especially inclined to
Lesbianism.
1965 [see HOMOSEXUAL a.].
1971 C. WOLFF Love between Women iii. 40
No theory has so far been evolved which deals exclusively with lesbianism.
1939 J. BITHELL Mod. German Lit. iii. 63
The heroine makes a pact with a theatrical agent that she will drain the cup
of joy to the dregs, which she does, with the inclusion of a Lesbian
marriage.
1986 S. CHURCHER N.Y. Confidential ix. 212
Peeches Three, a crowded Seventy-second Street lesbian spot,..hosted such
intimate events as a lesbian marriage.
1994 Nation 5 Sept. 241
A priest in Hartford who used the rituals to perform a number of gay and
lesbian marriages was recently excommunicated.
1990 Re: AIDS, Personal Encounters in soc.motss 12 Apr.,
The nearly universal wish, by netters and others, whether lesbigay, bi or
straight, to put AIDS aside.
1992 Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N. Carolina) 2 July 3/1
Everyone can see what lesbigays have to confront daily.
1997 Chicago Tribune 6 Aug. II. 3/1 ‘LesBiGay Radio’, as the show is
called, is the country's only daily drive-time radio show tilted toward listeners
who are gay.
2001 Advocate 3 July 72/1
Gay proms ghettoize lesbigay youth, letting public high schools off the hook
when they don't provide gay kids with safe and equal access to the main
event prom.
JL Speranza
The Swimming Pool Library
Villa Speranza, Bordighera
J. L. Speranza, Esq.
Town:
Calle Arenales 2021, Piso 5, St. 8,
La Recoleta C1124AAE,
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Tel. 54 11 4824 4253
Fax 54 221 425 9205
Country:
St. Michael Hall,
Calle 58, No. 611,
La Plata B1900 BPY
Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Tel. 54 221 425 7817
Fax 54 221 425 9205
http://www.stmichaels.com.ar
jls@netverk.com.ar
jlsperanza@aol.com
http://www.netverk/~jls.htm
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Received on Fri May 2 15:17:17 2008
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