Three residents of the Greek island Lesbos moved the courts to ban the rule of the word lesbian to describe gay women. Apparently, there once was a time when lesbian used to mean someone from Lesbos.
Does capitalization - a lesbian Lesbian is a lesbian from Lesbos - sufficiently distinguish the two meanings? It does sometimes work. Someone who welshes on a deal is not necessarily Welsh. But sometimes it doesn't. JK Galbraith lamented that the word Scotch once used to describe people from Scotland.
I've personally run into a more reversible (hopefully) but more scary identity blurring: when I tell non-Indians that I am a Tamil, their first association is with the Tamil Tigers.
The greatest thing about the English language is that it has no language police, no notion of the One True English. Shape-shifting words can't be legislated out of the lexicon. Would the French language police have upheld the Lesbian's objections?
Note (following my lawyer brother-in-law's shock at some of my previous posts): I am a staunch supporter of gay and lesbian rights...and have no specific views on British sub-national identities. No offense meant to anyone
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