End of ADS-L Digest - 13 Nov 1995 to 14 Nov 1995 ************************************************ To: Recipients of ADS-L digests There are 9 messages totalling 184 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Tomboy & Sissy (8) 2. Gringos (fwd) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 08:32:18 -0500 From: Wayne Glowka Subject: Tomboy & Sissy When I was a pre-pubescent child, both other children and parents with whom I conversed used the term "tomboy" to refer to a girl who preferred activities associated traditionally with boys and "sissy" to a boy who preferred activities traditionally associated with girls or who showed any weakness. But these terms had no connotation of sexual preference. (For example, a tomboy, who treed all of the boys at my birthday party by throwing a football at them, onced pinned me down in the second grade and kissed me as the nun walked in. I got the lecture about inappropriate behavior!) We learned new taboo terms for homosexuals in our pubescent days. However, I know someone who works in the Georgia prison system who regularly uses "tomboy" and "sissy" to refer to the female and male homosexuals in prison. He became a teenager in the South in the 1950s. Is he using a personal set of euphemisms or did I miss something as a naive child? Wayne Glowka Professor of English Director of Research and Graduate Student Services Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 912-453-4222 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu