What's a FAG?

[NOIRTRASH]

I came across FAG in an old memoir George Catlin wrote of his years spent painting American Indians. In it he characterized medicine bags as collections of FAG ENDS.

In the early 1800s FAG ENDS were the useless bits of what was used up, cigarette butts and small bits of short rope. But a FAG END can be anything, old people of both sexes were referred to as FAGGOTS.

 

[oggbashan]

Originally (17th Century) a fag end was the last and least important part of something. If a rope was cut leaving a short piece too short to use, that was a fag end.

Also used for paint. If a job was finished and a few teaspoonsful of paint were left, it was a fag end of paint.

The transfer to cigarettes is a 20th Century usage.

 

[NicoleZ]

Originally (17th Century) a fag end was the last and least important part of something. If a rope was cut leaving a short piece too short to use, that was a fag end.

Also used for paint. If a job was finished and a few teaspoonsful of paint were left, it was a fag end of paint.

The transfer to cigarettes is a 20th Century usage.

Also, there was the custom at British Public Schools where the youngest were assigned to senior students such as prefects. Not doubt the term "fag" applied to them alluded to their duties of cleaning and shining shoes as well as run errands for the lofty Pre-s. It's all in Wodehouse's school novels such as The White Feather, The Head of Kay's etc.

 

[oggbashan]

Also, there was the custom at British Public Schools where the youngest were assigned to senior students such as prefects. Not doubt the term "fag" applied to them alluded to their duties of cleaning and shining shoes as well as run errands for the lofty Pre-s. It's all in Wodehouse's school novels such as The White Feather, The Head of Kay's etc.

That is a different meaning of Fag, not connected to Fag End.

 

[ishtat]

Originally (17th Century) a fag end was the last and least important part of something. If a rope was cut leaving a short piece too short to use, that was a fag end.

Also used for paint. If a job was finished and a few teaspoonsful of paint were left, it was a fag end of paint.

The transfer to cigarettes is a 20th Century usage.

An even older reference Og, 1530 - OED described the process of faggoting as the tying of the lose ends on a cut piece of cloth in cloth manufacture. The transfer between cloth and rope pretty much described the same process.

 

[JackLuis]

FAG- Fat Angry Geezer

 

[NicoleZ]

That is a different meaning of Fag, not connected to Fag End.

I think you will find that the fags were so called in a transposed sense because they took care of the fag ends of a prefect's or senior's business, the sort of business no gentleman did for himself such as clean and shine football boots etc.

 

[beachbum1958]

I think you will find that the fags were so called in a transposed sense because they took care of the fag ends of a prefect's or senior's business, the sort of business no gentleman did for himself such as clean and shine football boots etc.

I attended a well known boys public school 40 years ago and had to 'fag' for a Prefect, like virtually every other boy in my year. We were called 'fags' because the Prefects lined us all and gave us speech in our House Rooms (probably a set-speech, as every House got the same speech) to the effect that we were the nasty fag-end and dregs of humanity, and we were required to be grateful to be selected to serve a senior boy in the hope some of his culture and refinement would rub off on us. 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' had nothing on my school...

Many of the Prefects were sadistic little pricks, and would punish us with impossible tasks for the least little infraction, like a 1,000 word essay on the mating habits of the common ping-pong ball, and failure to produce meant a month of being gated (confined to school) evenings and weekends, or being confined to school on Coach Weekends, when we were supposed to be having a weekend at home with our families. They did it gleefully, no doubt because that was what was done to them when they were lowly Preps and 1st Year boys.

I understand the practice of 'Fagging' has now been officially outlawed at my school, and most of the other 'Significant 13' public schools.

 

[oggbashan]

Shorter Oxford Dictionary. Dates are first recorded use:

[Og's expansions in square brackets]

Fag sb [substantive] 1780 (from the verb) 1. That which causes weariness (colloq.) 2. In English schools, a junior who performs certain duties for a senior. Also transf a drudge 1785.

[Quotes] 1. Not worth the fag of going and coming - Mrs Carlyle. 2. transf The diminutive fag of the studio. Thackeray.

Fag sb [substantive] 1464 a (more fully Fag-End) of unknown origin. In sense 2 modern abbreviation of fag-end [See below] b A cigarette (slang) 1888.

Fag sb [substantive] 1464 a of unknown origin. 1. A knot in cloth. 2. (Perhaps a different word) A sheep tick; hence, a disease of sheep 1789.

Fag verb 1530 of unknown origin [compare with verb Flag] 1. [intransitive] To flag, droop (literal and figurative) Obsolete dialect. 2. To do somthing that wearies one; to toil 1772. 3. [transitive] To make fatigued; to tire 1826. 4. In English schools [intransitive] To be, or act as, a fag 1806; also [transitive] to make a fag of 1824. 5. [Nautical] To untwist or wear out the end of a rope or rhe edge of canvas 1841.

Fag-end 1613 (from fag [substantive] and end [substantive]) 1. The last part of a piece of cloth; the coarser part that hangs loose; an un-twisted piece of rope 1721. 2 transf The last and poorest part of anything; the extreme end.

 

[sr71plt]

Getting to what I think JBJ is playing with, Webster's is more honest in including it as a disparaging term for "male homosexual" in its definitions (1912). It goes about it in a round about way, giving "fag" as a short form of "faggot" defined as a "woman or child" (1914)--and thus, by extension, an effeminate man. There, I think JBJ is getting what he was after.

 

[trysail]

I attended a well known boys public school 40 years ago and had to 'fag' for a Prefect, like virtually every other boy in my year. We were called 'fags' because the Prefects lined us all and gave us speech in our House Rooms (probably a set-speech, as every House got the same speech) to the effect that we were the nasty fag-end and dregs of humanity, and we were required to be grateful to be selected to serve a senior boy in the hope some of his culture and refinement would rub off on us. 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' had nothing on my school...

Many of the Prefects were sadistic little pricks, and would punish us with impossible tasks for the least little infraction, like a 1,000 word essay on the mating habits of the common ping-pong ball, and failure to produce meant a month of being gated (confined to school) evenings and weekends, or being confined to school on Coach Weekends, when we were supposed to be having a weekend at home with our families. They did it gleefully, no doubt because that was what was done to them when they were lowly Preps and 1st Year boys.

I understand the practice of 'Fagging' has now been officially outlawed at my school, and most of the other 'Significant 13' public schools.

I've never heard the term "Significant 13" before.


Charterhouse
Eton College
Sherborne
Radley
Harrow School
Rugby School
Shrewsbury School
Westminster School
Winchester College


That's only nine.



​

 

[KindofHere]

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[beachbum1958]

I've never heard the term "Significant 13" before.


Charterhouse
Eton College
Sherborne
Radley
Harrow School
Rugby School
Shrewsbury School
Westminster School
Winchester College


That's only nine.



​

'Significant 13' was an old, snobbish classification for the allegedly top public schools. The 4 that make up the current list are Cheltenham (or Dulwich College, or Latymer, take your pick), Winchester, Clifton & Ampleforth, and I believe Oakham, Uppingham, Christ's Hospital, and Malvern were also periodically in and out of the original list, depending on which member of the royal family was sent there after being dismissed from Eton.

The nine you've listed, with Merchant Taylor's and Winchester, instead of Sherborne and Radley, were known as the nine 'Clarendon' schools, or 'great public schools', with the greatest snob value...

The list above, with some of the others I've listed, and a few omissions, is pretty much the one we Old Boys are handed every year as a prelude to wringing donations out for us for whichever educational or charitable trust the schools are ganging-up to support; this year it was GDST (the Girls Day-school Trust), but I don't know how or who compiles the list; possibly Tatler, and I have no idea how they choose the recipient of their donations drive. Year by year, the only real constant occupants of that list are Harrow, Rugby, my old school, and Charterhouse. My daughter went to Rodean, so I have a certain obligation to support their own charitable endeavours first, so I tend to ignore the demanding money without menaces letter I get from the schools' charity bods.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'd use 'fag' to describe a tough, mean gay guy you don't want to fuck with. And when I used it, i'd made sure you knew that is what i meant.

Here in Oz "fag" was more aligned with effeminate gay men, not macho gay men. It's largely fallen out of use this last decade or so, with "gay" taking its place, generally.

"Fag hag" got traction for a while, a woman who kept the company of gay men either because they were "safe" or because they liked their company.

It's always been a cigarette - "can I bludge a fag?"

 

[KindofHere]

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[49greg]

My family didn't use the term fag or fag end, although I had heard it used. But it would describe what my dad and uncles found in my grandmother's house after she had passed away.

In and upper kitchen cabinet was a paper sack, on it was written the words "string to short to save". No kidding.

So in other words, it was a sack of string fag ends. LOL.

I've also heard, well read, the word "faggot" to describe wood to burn - firewood or pieces of firewood.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Fags origin is similar to PUNK, a worthless, useless residue.

Florida is infested with a tree from Australia we call PUNK TREE.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

http://pasco.ifas.ufl.edu/gardening/melaleuca.shtml

From Australia. Like Australians, its a pest here.

 

[sr71plt]

I was surprised to see the first Webster's definition of "punk" being "prostitute," dated back to 1596--and then a few other definitions I'd find useful if readers were aware of those definitions.

 

[ElectricBlue]

http://pasco.ifas.ufl.edu/gardening/melaleuca.shtml

From Australia. Like Australians, its a pest here.

Evolution, my son. Survival of the fittest.

 

[ishtat]

Fags origin is similar to PUNK, a worthless, useless residue.

Florida is infested with a tree from Australia we call PUNK TREE.

Punk tree = Melaleuca = Broad leafed paperbark. It seems to grow much bigger and more densely in Florida than here in OZ. Rarely gets much over 8 to 10 metres here.

Florida's also got loads of Casuarinas which I think you call Australian pines. They're a pest and ugly.

But worst of all is the Tasmanian blue gum a huge fast growing hardwood = Eucalyptus globulus globulus Far too many planted in California - also in Southern Europe and the middle east. They are a severe fire hazard and grow very fast. They do produce a valuable timber though.

Oddly, introduced European and American animals have wiped out swathes of OZ animals but with plants it's the other way around. Oz plants which evolved in harsh dry conditions tend to grow madly in more favourable environments.

The Macadamia nut is about the only useful food plant native to Oz.