From PC Watch:
GAV and Wazza, the gay couple from the hit TV reality show The Block, proved to be such nice people that any homophobia from middle Australia was quickly transformed into fan mail from families.
But just as they mainstreamed gaydom on Channel 9, along came the linguistic backlash. In every schoolyard in Sydney, children are using the word "gay" with a new derogatory meaning.
The latest Macquarie Dictionary which hit the bookstores last week, includes the new definition for the first time: 'Colloquial (especially among children) unfashionable, unstylish: that bag is really gay; don't be so gay!" Dictionary editor Alison Moore says the meaning has now embedded itself in everyday language, but she found citations from as early as 1991....
It's latest negative reincarnation may be a backlash by children against political correctness, suggests Sydney University's Gary Simes, who is compiling a dictionary of sexual language. "For all that society has become very [tolerant], I suspect it's a reaction against the fact they have to accept homosexuals and political correctness....."
This is happening in Canada, too. I wrote about it back in January, coming to much the same conclusion.
The thing I like about the English language is its sprawling inclusiveness. It freely borrows when it needs to -- caveat emptor; kindergarten -- but is fiercely, democratically resistant to change imposed from above. No French Academy to dictate what the proper form of "e-mail" is. (Does anyone remember what they eventually came up with?)
I suspect that "gay" is rapidly on the way out, and my vote for the next locution electrocution would be the ghastly lengths that people go to avoid the male impersonal pronoun. "S/he"? Take a hike, sister.