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Out of closet? | ||
Tags: Homosexuality | Meaning of words | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| chenshujian Diglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5534 days ago 122 posts - 139 votes  Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: French | Message 1 of 27 21 September 2013 at 5:55am | IP Logged | ||
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Last night I happened to watch a speech by Wentworth Miller. He was talking about his courage to tell the world that he was gay. And he used the phrase like "go out of the closet" ( i am not very sure cuz there was no subtitle). Can anyone explain this for me?
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| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4773 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 2 of 27 21 September 2013 at 6:40am | IP Logged | ||
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"Coming out of the closet" is an idiom that is used when a gay man/woman publicly reveals they are gay to family and friends and decides to live the gay lifestyle. If someone is gay and they are keeping it a secret, they are said to be "in the closet". When they "come out" to the world as gay, they "come out of the closet".
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| chenshujian Diglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5534 days ago 122 posts - 139 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: French | Message 3 of 27 21 September 2013 at 11:37am | IP Logged | ||
And I am curious that why closet and gay are linked? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4943 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 4 of 27 21 September 2013 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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It would be interesting if you tell what are the equivalents of this phrase in your native languages. In Polish it's "wyjść z szafy", so pretty much the same.
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6993 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 27 21 September 2013 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, there is also this expression, "(to have) skeletons in the closet" (dark secrets, or just things you don't want to share with anyone for whatever reasons). It's simply an enclosed room where you keep things.
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| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4957 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 6 of 27 21 September 2013 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | ||
The word "closet" seems to be used in expressions like that as a place where you hide things. After googling around, I found that the origin seems to be unknown, and might be linked to "skeletons in the closet", or simply hiding in a closet (from the outside world). EDIT: In Norwegian: "å komme ut av skapet" Edited by stifa on 21 September 2013 at 1:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4908 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 7 of 27 21 September 2013 at 1:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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In french : sortir du placard.
From Wikipedia: The present-day expression "coming out" is understood to have originated in the early 20th century from an analogy that likens homosexuals’ introduction into gay subculture to a débutante’s coming-out party. This is a celebration for a young upper-class woman who is making her début – her formal presentation to society – because she has reached adult age or has become eligible for marriage. As historian George Chauncey points out: "Gay people in the pre-war years [pre-WWI]... did not speak of coming out of what we call the gay closet but rather of coming out into what they called homosexual society or the gay world, a world neither so small, nor so isolated, nor... so hidden as closet implies"[11] [...] An article on coming out[13] in the online encyclopedia glbtq.com states that sexologist Dr. Evelyn Hooker’s observations introduced the use of "coming out" to the academic community in the 1950s. The article continues by echoing Chauncey's observation that a subsequent shift in connotation occurred later on. The pre-1950s focus was on entrance into "a new world of hope and communal solidarity" whereas the post-Stonewall Riots overtone was an exit from the oppression of the closet.[13] This change in focus suggests that "coming out of the closet" is a mixed metaphor that joins "coming out" with the closet metaphor: an evolution of "skeleton in the closet" specifically referring to living a life of denial and secrecy by concealing one’s homosexual or bisexual orientation. The closet metaphor, in turn, is extended to the forces and pressures of heterosexist society and its institutions. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| chenshujian Diglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5534 days ago 122 posts - 139 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: French | Message 8 of 27 21 September 2013 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | ||
In my native language Chinese, it is called "出柜". But it is just a literal translation of the phrase "out of the closet". It is a word newly created by the Chinese entertainment media. I didn't know this word before. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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