Well have a gay old time
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The original meaning is retained in historical use (such as hero cults or the cult of Mithras), which can lead to confusion when non-academics assume that it's being used pejoratively.
Jeremiah 24:2 mentions a basket of "naughty figs", meaning they were spoiled and worthless. Nope. In fact, “cock” was the only word used for a rooster until the late 18th century, and “rooster” may have originated as a euphemism. The song plays up the more vulgar modern meaning of "cock" for all it's worth.
Has anybody seen my cock, my big Westchester red?
He's mostly pink, with a little bit of blue and purple 'round his head
He stands straight up in the morning, and gives me quite a shock
Has anybody seen, has anybody seen, has anybody seen my cock?
The Flintstones Theme Song Lyrics
The Flintstones Theme Lyrics
The Flintstones Lyrics
(Yabba Dabba Doo!)
Flintstones.
We'll have a gay old time. A variant of this survives today, when we speak of, say, a friend "turning you on", i.e., starting your interest in a new TV series or hobby, etc, though to describe yourself as interested, you'd say you had been "turned onto" something rather than "turned on by'' it.
Character design and voicework were called into question, with everyone from Mr. Slade to the Great Gazoo falling under the microscope. Now it's almost always used as a slang word for the drug MDMA, which first started being called that because it causes such a feeling in some people who take it. It wasn't until the late 1800s that microscopes powerful enough to examine atoms up close were invented, at which point it was discovered that atoms weren't indivisible, and were made out of smaller particles, namely, protons,neutrons, and electrons.
Then that cat will stay out for the night. The verb "to erect" and the adjective "erect" are still often used in their original meanings. Consequently, this use has fallen out of favor since the late 2000s to early 2010s, and is rarely if ever used in this way even now, making works from the era where it was common half an example of this, and half an example of Get Thee to a Nunnery depending on the context.
Nowadays it's almost always used to just mean a bad person in general, although most dictionaries also list the archaic definition as well.
According to one, it came from beaches (or just one particular beach) in California where a lot of trees grew with twisted branches and exposed roots. However, it entered the English language (via French) to mean "failure" or "humiliation" for reasons that are unclear, possibly via an expression fare fiasco, meaning to lose at a game and have to buy the next bottle of wine for the table as a forfeit.
Nowadays, however, as a standalone noun, when "nut" isn't referring to a literal nut, it's most often slang for "testicle," which is also a roundish lump. Since at least the '60s, however, 'homo' on its own has come to be a shortening of "homosexual", which leads to many snickers in introductory biology classes where the instructor explains that every person in the room is technically a Homo, or is descended from the unfortunately named species Homo erectus (which contains another example on this list).
This connotation dates from the 1970s backlash against figures like Jim Jones. The difference, he says, is that "a fag wouldn't go downtown with you to beat up queers."
However, the non-offensive meanings are still occasionally used by people in relevant fields, which can cause problems when, for example, an auto mechanic is telling a transgender customer that they fixed their car's transmission.