my totally lame dilemma

So, I have a bad habit that I've been trying to break. I think I picked it up while I was in middle school, and I became aware that it was a problem in high school. My bad habit is calling things "gay."

Please don't get me wrong. I am not the PC Nazi. I'm actually pretty fed up with people automatically getting fired for one foolish statement. My own vocabulary is far from antiseptically clean and unoffensive. I'm pretty compelled by arguments for "re-claiming" words like "bitch" and even the "n-word."

So, why am I worried about calling things "gay?" For me, it all goes back to Hurricane Katrina. After Katrina happened it was, of course, all anyone was talking about. How terrible and destructive Katrina was. How long it would take the beautiful city of New Orleans to recover from Katrina's wrath. How Katrina ruined everything.

And people named Katrina became perturbed, if not downright depressed. All they heard, day in and day out, was how terrible Katrina was. They knew what people were referring to, but it still started to wear on them. Obviously no one blamed them or wished them ill, sharing a name with a hurricane was completely coincidental. And yet it hurt.

No one was passing judgment on people named Katrina, and yet having their name associated with so much negativity hurt a lot of people. Now, imagine how much more it would hurt if some of the people saying these things really did hate people named Katrina. If with each random, casual mention, you had to wonder whether the person really did wish you ill. I consider myself a GLBT ally, and I don't want to hurt people out of intellectual laziness. So, I set out in search of another word to use.

I thought I had hit pay dirt with "lame." "That's so gay" and "that's so lame" seemed pretty much interchangeable, and I thought I had my replacement. I could stop calling things gay while still getting my point across. Until, years after I initially thought of this replacement, it finally occurred to me what "lame" meant:

lame

¹   [leym] Show IPA adjective,lam·er, lam·est,verb,lamed, lam·ing, noun

–adjective

1.

crippled or physically disabled, esp. in the foot or leg so as to limp or walk with difficulty.

2.

impaired or disabled through defect or injury: a lame arm.

3.

weak; inadequate; unsatisfactory; clumsy: a lame excuse.

4.

Slang. out of touch with modern fads or trends; unsophisticated.

Wow, duh. Now, I'm pretty sure that the American Disability Association hasn't taken a stand on the word "lame" the same way GLAAD has taken a stand on the word "gay," but this got me wondering. What exactly am I trying to express when I call something "lame" or "gay?" Does the fact that I can't seem to find a suitable replacement that doesn't put anyone down mean that putting someone down is essential to what I'm saying? Somehow "that's totally mediocre" doesn't pack the same punch as "that's totally gay," but of what essence is the punch that I'm looking for? And is it essentially mean-spirited?

I guess "lame" is a little old-fashioned to actually be offensive, but I think the fact that I can't think of anything else that expresses what these two words express is pretty thought-provoking.