Fruit (slang)

Origin and historical usage

In A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address author Leslie Dunkling traces the friendly use of the phrase old fruit (and rarely old tin of fruit) to the 1920s in Britain, possibly deriving from the phrase fruit of the womb. In the United States, however, both fruit and fruitcake are seen as negative, with fruitcake likely originating from the idiom nutty as a fruitcake .

Costermongers and Cockney rhyming slang

A costermonger was a street seller of fruit and vegetables. The term, which derived from the words costard (a type of apple) and monger, i.e. "seller", came to be particularly associated with the "barrow boys" of London who would sell their produce from a wheelbarrow or wheeled market stall. Costermongers have existed in London since at least the 16th century, when they were mentioned by Shakespeare and Marlowe, and were probably most numerous during the Victorian era, when there were said to be over 30,000 in 1860. They gained a fairly unsavoury reputation for their "low habits, general improvidence, love of gambling, total want of education, disregard for lawful marriage ceremonies, and their use of a peculiar slang language".{{cite book |access-date=2007-11-16}} Two examples of their slang are referring to potatoes as "bog-oranges" likely developed from the phrase "Irish fruit" also referring to potatoes{{cite book |access-date=2007-11-16}} and "cool the delo nammow" which means 'watch out for that old woman' with the words essentially backwards; cool (look), delo (old) and nammow (woman).{{cite book |access-date=2007-11-16}}

Out of the East End of London traditional Cockney rhyming slang developed, which works by taking two words that are related through a short phrase and using the first word to stand for a word that rhymes with the second. For instance, the most popular of these rhyming slang phrases used throughout Britain is probably "telling porkies" meaning "lies" as "pork pies" rhymes with lies. "Alright, me old fruit?" is an example of this as "fruit gum" is translated as meaning "chum" (a friend or acquaintance).{{cite web |access-date=2007-11-16}}

Cassell's Dictionary of Slang traces uses of fruit meaning an easy victim in the late 19th century and also as an eccentric person (along with fruitball, fruit basket and fruit merchant).{{cite book

As gay slang

Fruit as gay slang or slur is amongst the lexicon of the cant slang Polari used in the gay subculture in Britain, which has become more mainstream with transcontinental travel and online communication.{{cite news |access-date=2007-11-14 |access-date=2007-11-15}}

Several origins of the word fruit being used to describe gay men are possible, and most stem from the linguistic concepts of insulting a man by comparing him to or calling him a woman. In Edita Jodonytë and Palmina Morkienë's research On Sexist Attitudes in English they note "female-associated words become totally derogatory when applied to males"{{cite web |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20050323094459/http://www.kalbos.lt/txt/1/jod_2.htm |archive-date = 2005-03-23 |access-date=2009-11-23}} and “[W]hen language oppresses it does so by any means that disparage and belittle.” Comparing a gay man to fruit, soft and tender, effeminate, like a woman has possibly gained near universal use because both LGBTQ people and fruit are found nearly everywhere.{{cite journal |access-date=2007-11-16

From the 1857 "Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English: Containing Words from the English Writers Previous to the Nineteenth Century Which Are No Longer In Use, Or Are Not Used In The Same Sense. And Words Which Are Now Used Only In The Provincial Dialects" (e.g. all parts of England other than London) several routes seem likely, cockney was "an effeminate boy who sold fruit and greens{{cite book |access-date=2007-11-15}} while cobble is the stone (or pit) of a fruit which also is presently defined as male testicles{{cite book |access-date=2007-11-15}}{{cite book |access-date=2007-11-16 |access-date=2007-11-15}}

Fruitcake

Fruitcakes, which are cakes containing both fruit and nuts, have been in existence since the Middle Ages, but it is unclear when the term started being used disparagingly, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States, as a slur for a 'crazy person' (e.g., "he's a complete fruitcake") although Cassell's Dictionary of Slang traces uses of fruitcake meaning an eccentric (crazy) person to 1910s. It is derived from the expression "nutty as a fruitcake", which was first recorded in 1935. A nut can be either a seed or a fruit.

By the 1930s both fruit and fruitcake terms are seen as not only negative but also to mean male homosexual,{{cite book |author-link=Leslie Dunkling |access-date=2007-11-15

From 1942 to 1947, conscientious objectors in the US assigned to psychiatric hospitals under Civilian Public Service exposed abuses throughout the psychiatric care system and were instrumental in reforms of the 1940s and 1950s.

Usages

''Strange Fruit''

"Strange Fruit" is most often a reference to the lynchings of black people in the American South, in reference to the jazz song of that name popularised by Billie Holiday. Fruit of the gibbet (used 18th through late 19th centuries) refers to a hanged man{{cite book |access-date=2007-11-16 |access-date=2007-11-16 |access-date=2007-11-16}}

"Strange Fruit" as a song and concept has been used in LGBTQ art including a 1944 lesbian novel,{{cite book |access-date=2007-11-15 |access-date = 2007-11-15 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080109214615/http://www.outonscreen.com/festival/2005/viewshowtime.php?stid=37 |archive-date = 2008-01-09 |access-date = 2007-11-15 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060911105043/https://www.communication.northwestern.edu/performancestudies/faculty/E_Patrick_Johnson/fruit/ |archive-date = 2006-09-11 |access-date=2007-11-15}}

"Fruta Extraña," Spanish for "Strange Fruit", is a Spanish and English gay-themed talk show on BronxNet, Bronx public access television. Eric Stephen Booth directed the show as well as one of the longest-running programs on Bronx public access television. "Strange Fruits," which the New York Times describes as "a 30-minute burst of gender-bending camp and low-budget intrigue" that is "flamboyantly irreverent, unabashedly gay and teeming with men in high heels and pantyhose." The bizarre sometimes free-form soap-opera was aired from 1997 to 2007 and has multi-racial cast of straight and LGBTQ actors. The show was "one of the few public displays of homosexuality in a blue-collar borough that is a bastion of Latin machismo" The show was also broadcast on Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Queens Public Television.{{cite news |access-date=2007-11-15}}

The fruit machine

The fruit machine was a pseudoscientific machine built to aid in the detection of gay people in the Canadian Civil Service from 1950 to 1973.{{cite book |access-date=2007-11-15 |access-date=2007-11-14 |access-date=2007-11-14

The Fruit Machine is an ITV Productions 1988 thriller about two Brighton gay teenagers running from an underworld assassin and the police.{{cite news |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090316084915/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/131998/The-Fruit-Machine/overview |url-status = dead |archive-date = 2009-03-16 |access-date=2007-11-16}}{{cite web |access-date = 2007-11-16 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090304032906/http://www.timeout.com/film/newyork/reviews/67141/The_Fruit_Machine.html |archive-date = 2009-03-04

On 8 July 1992 The Fruit Machine weekly club for "queers, dykes and their friends" opened at England's largest gay dance venue Heaven in London and recently celebrated their fifteenth anniversary.;{{cite web |access-date=2007-11-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071109114909/http://www.heaven-london.com/london/clubs/index.asp |archive-date=2007-11-09 |url-status=dead

Fruit salad

On June 1, 1963, Alfred Chester of The New York Review of Books gave an extremely unfavorable review of gay author John Rechy's first novel City Of Night under the disparaging title "Fruit Salad"{{cite web |access-date=2007-11-15}} including speculation that Rechy was a pseudonym. The story is of a male hustler seeking love while working the streets of New York City, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. It was later revealed that the book was at least partly autobiographical.{{cite web |access-date = 2007-11-15 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071106123817/http://mountainpridemedia.org/oitm/issues/2002/03mar2002/ae10_qclassics.htm |archive-date = November 6, 2007

In South Africa, fruit salad refers to male genitals{{cite book |access-date=2007-11-15

Frozen Fruit

A gay slang term from the 1970s meaning a sexually uninterested gay man.

Suck a Fruit for Anita

In the 1970s Anita Bryant became the spokesperson for Florida orange juice, making a series of television commercials for them. She is also widely known for her strong views against homosexuality, and for her prominent Save Our Children campaign to prevent gay equality by overturning a 1977 Dade County (now Miami-Dade County) human-rights ordinance that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Bryant led a highly publicized successful campaign to repeal the ordinance waged on what was labeled Christian beliefs regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality and the perceived threat of homosexual recruitment of children and child molestation. The campaign was the start of an organized opposition to gay rights that spread across the nation and many credit it as a second Stonewall mobilizing LGBTQ people to come out of their closets.{{cite web |access-date=2007-11-15 |archive-date=2007-10-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071009171632/http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2007-04-26/film/strange-fruit/ |url-status=dead

Fruit Loops

Jonathon Green, author of Cassell's Dictionary of Slang, lists several definitions for "Fruit Loops" including the loop at the back of a man's shirt collar which can be used to "hold a victim ready for buggery" (circa 1980 on college campuses), gay men{{cite web |access-date = 2007-11-16 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071111083227/http://www.lagniappemobile.com/article/1171 |archive-date = 2007-11-11 |access-date=2007-11-16}} A fruitloop can also refer to a person considered crazy.

Fruit Loops, (also singular Fruit Loop and Fruitloops) are also Freedom Rings), a set of six rainbow-colored metal rings worn as necklaces, bracelets, etc., to symbolize gay pride or solidarity with LGBTQ people that were popularized in the 1990s.{{cite book |access-date=2007-11-15 | access-date = 2010-07-21 For National Coming Out Day (United States held 11 October) students have made home-made versions of the "freedom rings" with actual Froot Loops cereal. As a fundraiser, an LGBTQ student group has made Rice Krispies treat using Froot Loops cereal and called them "Fruity Gay Bars".{{Cite news | access-date = 2010-07-21

''Fruit Punch''

Fruit Punch was one of the first gay radio show in the United States,{{cite web |access-date = 2007-11-14 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071128022103/http://www.mountainpridemedia.org/oitm/issues/2000/apr2000/news_wbriefs.htm |archive-date = 2007-11-28 |access-date=2007-11-14}} and possibly the world, which aired weekly from 1973 to 1979 from Berkeley radio station KPFA, the first listener-supported radio broadcaster in the United States. Audio from the program is archived by the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco.

Fruit stand

In South Africa a fruit stand is a gay bar while in the US it is an area to pick up gay male hustlers.

In 1983, Frank Robinson, then manager of the San Francisco Giants, joked that the team is planning to have a special seating section for gays. "Instead of a grandstand," he says, "We're going to call it a fruit stand."{{cite web |access-date=2007-11-16}}

Speaking of "celebrated fag hag" and former Warhol superstar Dorothy Dean, author Hilton Als writes (she) "reigned, with both cruelty and compassion, over that site of urban gay culture she called 'the fruit stand'."{{cite web |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081002014705/https://drum.umd.edu/dspace/bitstream/1903/2883/1/umi-umd-2662.pdf |url-status = dead |archive-date = 2008-10-02 |access-date = 2007-11-16

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a 1985 novel by Jeanette Winterson which she subsequently adapted into a BBC television drama. It is about a lesbian girl who grows up in an extremely religious community. The main character is a young girl named Jeanette (Jess in the TV serial) who is adopted by evangelists, who believe she is destined to become a missionary. However, Jeanette finds herself subject to desires and feelings that contrast with the beliefs of the evangelical church. Because of these feelings, she finds herself subject to horrific practices and exorcisms, encouraged by her mother and her mother's friends.

The novel interweaves Biblical passages thus exploring the tension many LGBTQ people have with organized religion and Christianity in particular. The phrase "Be fruitful, and multiply" has been cited to support theories that God does not believe in gay rights, LGBTQ people are not born as such and instead have made a lifestyle choice and that God does not approve of homosexuality.

''Tropical Fruits''

Tropical Fruits is the name of an LGBTQ grassroots community group led by xGarbageFire in Lismore in northern NSW Australia that hosts a number of gatherings throughout the year culminating in an annual New Year's Eve multi-day party. They started in 1988 and attract international travelers to the middle of the Australian bush with attendance of 3,500 people. "We've got oldies, youngies, fairies, muscle marys, trannies, queens, vanilla dykes, butch dykes, femme dykes, Michaels – that's what we call the vanilla boys," she laughs, "and we all hang out here together. Our parties are very camp, very queer – we embrace the full queer mix."{{cite web |access-date = 2007-11-16 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071028153608/http://www.samesame.com.au/features/1549/Time-To-Get-Your-Fruit-On.htm |archive-date = 2007-10-28

Fruit Juice

Fruit Juice is a name of a magazine started in 1988 by "two dykes and two poofters" in Lismore in northern NSW Australia that was a focal point for the formation of the Tropical Fruits community group. It can also refer to semen for or from a gay man.

Fruit fly

People who associate with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people may be called fruit flies (along with fruit bats) regardless of their sex. Fruit fly can also refer to a gay man.

Females associated with gay males are also known as fag hags, whereas men associated with lesbians are known as dyke tykes, Dutch boys, lesbros or lezbros.

In South Africa the definition seems more stringent as a woman with only gay male friends while in Filipino culture "fruit fly" is based on a metaphor of a woman buzzing around gay men.

References

References

1. Danny. (2007). "Strange Fruit". Nighttours.com.
2. "Brewer, E. Cobham. Dictionary of Phrase & Fable – Costard".
3. ''One Small Step for Genkind''. In Exploring Language; Miller, C., Swift, K. (1992: page 220), Harper Collins.
4. (2006-09-26). "Lexigraphy: Piccadilly Polari".
5. (16 September 2015). "History of Fruitcake". whatscookingamerica.net.
6. nutty as a fruitcake. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Houghton Mifflin Company. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nutty as a fruitcake (accessed: December 04, 2014).
7. "Strange Fruits TV".
8. Brumfitt, Stuart. (2006-11-12). "Reggay Boyz". (Guardian) The Observer.
9. "City of Night".
10. Rechy, John. (October 31, 1996). "Complaint (Re: Fruit Salad)". [[The New York Review of Books]].
11. Woolhouse, Bob. (18 December 1986). "Spiking Up Fruit Punch". [[Bay Area Reporter]].
12. "Audio Search".
13. Newall, Venetia. (1986). "Folklore and Male Homosexuality". Folklore.
14. Wassersug, Richard. (August 2005). "Six Rules for Dyke Tykes".
15. Stein, Joshua. (July 2009). "Straight Men and Their Lesbian Best Friends".
16. Gumbley, India. (5 September 2011). "Top 10 reasons to get yourself a lesbro".
17. (14 August 2009). "Lesbians and the men they call their friends".
18. (8–10 July 2005). "Fag Hags in Filipino Gay Culture: Friendships, Identities, and Personality". University of the Philippines Diliman.