Light in the loafers

This essay on the politics of language choice and the evolution of euphemisms brought to mind a recent conversation. The essay is The Reality-Denying Politicization of the English Language by Victor Davis Hanson.

Orwell also wrote about a futuristic dystopia ruled by a Big Brother government that created politicized euphemisms to reinvent reality.

The examples Hanson provides are:

Justice-involved youth, a euphemism for criminals (from our Attorney General, Loretta Lynch)
Climate chaos, a euphemism for weather
Sanctuary cities, a euphemism for local governments that do not enforce rule of law
Man-caused disaster, a euphemism for Islamic terrorism

The recent discussion that this recalled was the old term, "He's light in the loafers."

I hadn't heard it in years. I asked around to see how many people knew the term, and did some googling. Only people above forty or fifty recalled the term. Younger people hadn't heard of it at all. It seems like the phrase may have circulated perhaps 1950s-1970s.

I knew it as a euphemism for an effeminate man or, more explicitly, a gay man. It was an alternate, and gentler, allusion to someone rather than making a judgmental characterization. That understanding seems to have been the common one for the euphemism. Some people understood it to have a wider range, from light in the loafers meaning somewhat less than manly all the way up to an extravagantly effeminate man.

I can see why there was the need for the euphemism in an era when homosexual activity wasn't only frowned upon, it was a prosecutable offense (think Oscar Wilde). To call someone a homosexual was to call them a criminal. Thus the euphemism to capture the essence but without being explicit.

Why has it passed from common parlance? For the same reason it was brought into being in the first place. When homosexuality was a crime, we wanted a euphemism. Now that LGBT have been "normalized" de jure and in most places de facto, there is no longer any need to euphemize. "He's gay" or "She's lesbian" no longer refers to a criminal state but to an orientation.

In that regard, it is nice that the circumstances requiring the euphemism have gone. On the other hand, what a marvellously dexterous wording. Socially we are richer but linguistically we are just a little bit poorer.