The word "queer". Our homosexual friends will forgive me if I take this word back for the common usage. I imagine they're quite through with it anyway.
Without resorting to my Funk & Wagnall's, the word "queer" means odd, strange, weirdly out of place, contrary to all expectations. Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" dealt with queer topics. It's a very useful word in the English language, and its time has come to return for its original use.
The British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane famously said "I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."
Bingo. Richard Dawkins recently had to defend Haldane for the use of the word "queer" from someone who wanted to know what the nature of the universe had to do with human homosexuality. Dawkins simply explained that the word "queer" means weird, and I think he was somewhat embarrassed in having to say so.
Queer Nation notwithstanding, call something, not someone, queer today. OK, tomorrow, it's late. The richness of the matris lingua demands it.
nsns
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