Offensive ?

[bodeker]

Is it not offensive to call someone queer ? There have been at least 2 articles I have seen recently that have used that description and I was surprised by it

[ummmm]

what articles?

[Mamyalynne]

It would depend on context and where it was stated.

[dannyk13]

I suppose it depends upon in what context the word is used.It would not be offensive, for instance to call someone a queer old stick.

[douglas9401]

It's not offensive if they're a bit odd.

[cupid04]

My dear old nan used to say she felt queer when she was unwell [bless her]!

[Old_Geezer]

That certainly sounds queer.
Where were the articles ?

Maybe it's that old "chestnut", that claim one can describe one's group using words one wishes to ban others from using ?

[bodeker]

There was one article in the Guardian today and it was in ref to being gay.

[Baldric]

Concise Oxford Dictionary says
///The word queer was first used to mean ‘homosexual’ in the late 19th century; when used by heterosexual people, it was originally an aggressively derogatory term. By the late 1980s, however, some gay people began to deliberately use the word queer in place of gay or homosexual, in an attempt, by using the word positively, to deprive it of its negative power. Queer also came to have broader connotations, relating not only to homosexuality but to any sexual orientation or gender identity not corresponding to heterosexual norms. The neutral use of queer is now well established and widely used, especially as an adjective or noun modifier, and exists alongside the derogatory usage///

[bodeker]

It was in the online version in the culture section, Whats it like to be queer and Muslim.

[hc4361]

American homosexuals and lesbians commonly refer to themselves as queer, it is not derogatory.

[bodeker]

I am getting old , I no longer know what is the right way to describe things, people .

[douglas9401]

There's nowt as queer as fowk.

[Peter Pedant]

I said to someone I knew: "you have just said knee-jair"
and she said "I am allowed to : I am afro caribbean (and so was he) "

'I can and you can't' and I said: 'oh'

[webbo3]

Not according to this meaning.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/there-s-nowt-so***-as-folk

there's nowt so queer as folk
UK informal saying
› said to emphasize that people sometimes behave in a very strange way


Dave.

[naomi24]

Like that word that only black people may say, it depends on who says it. At the gathering in London in tribute to victims of the Orlando shootings one of those interviewed told the television reporter, “We’re queer and we’re here”.

[chiaroscuro]