Loose Lips	Loose Lips Archive

Viewers of "The Sopranos" were abuzz last year with the revelation that gangster Vito was gay, or a fanook. (Vito's business associates did not take this very well, as one might expect.) But where does the work fanook come from? Finocchio is the standard Italian for "gay," but there are regional variations. Sicilian-Americans of Blanche's acquaintance actually say something like finoic, but perhaps finook or fanook are also found among some speakers.

<

View our poll archive

I>Finocchio also means "fennel," and the relationship between homosexuality and fennel is puzzling. Several theories are found on the internet. One of the most common ideas is that during the Middle Ages, homosexuals were publicly burned for their sins and that fennel was part of this execution, though theories vary on why. The Spanish-language Wikipedia claims that fennel will make the process last longer, while other sites claim that fennel will reduce the odor of the burning body. Yet other websites and blogs claim that fennel stalks were the fuel for the fire.

The problem with the "Fennel on burning bodies" theory is that there is no historical evidence that this ever happened. Homosexuals (and many, many others) were burned by the Church, but so far as Blanche can determine, no contemporary source ever documented fennel playing any role in these executions. Fennel smells good, but it is hard to see how it would be powerful enough to cover the odor of burning bodies. And if you wanted fuel, why not use wood?

But turning to wood reminds of us of "faggot" in English. Guide readers will probably have heard a similar theory about the origin of this word. According to many, homosexuals are called "faggots" because of the bundles of wood (i.e., faggots) that were used to burn them. This theory has a bit more initial plausibility because heretics were undoubtedly burned with wood, and there is historic evidence that heretics were associated with faggots. But this theory ultimately doesn't hold up very well, for reasons Blanche explored in a column a few years ago. The problems are that although heretics were burned on faggots and had to carry faggots around, it doesn't seem that they were called faggots.

Much more plausible is an origin for faggot as a word for a contemptible woman (analogous to "old bag"), later transferred as an insult for gay men. So though the burning-gay-men-on-faggots-of-wood theory is dramatic, it's not likely to be the true etymology. Similarly, the fennel-finocchio theory is not very likely to be true.

Giovanni Dall'Orto is a well-known gay writer and activist who runs an Italian-language web site on gay issues (Giovannidallorto.com). There he discusses this problem and makes some interesting observations. First, finocchio for "homosexual" is only attested from about 1863. That raises an immediate problem for the heretic-burning theory. If finocchio really originates in the Middle Ages, then why is there no record till the 19th century?

"Much more likely, according to Dall'Orto is an etymology in which finocchio as "homosexual" derives from earlier uses of the word to mean "worthless, traitorous." Finocchio is used in this way in verses apocryphally attributed to Dante:

E quei, ch'io non credeva esser finocchi, ma veri amici, e prossimi, gią sono venuti contra me con lancie, e stocchi.

[And those, who I did not believe were traitors, but true friends and very close, now were come in front of me with lances and thrusts.]

Dall'Orto also cites the Italian expression essere come il finocchio nella salsiccia ("to be like fennel in sausage"), meaning "to be worthless." Blanche wouldn't exactly see a seasoning as worthless, but Dall'Orto points out that fennel is a cheap, local way of flavoring meat, and may have been considered a "poor man's spice" in comparison to more expensive and exotic seasonings such as black pepper and chili.

From "worthless" to "homosexual" has not been a long semantic journey in most of European history, sad to say. Though finocchio and "faggot" probably don't actually reflect a medieval history of death-by-burning, they do both derive from pejorative comparisons to worthless, cheap, or undervalued things like bundles of sticks or seeds. Fortunately, etymology is our servant and not our master. Many groups now proudly use labels that originated as pejoratives-- Methodists and Quakers, for example. The GLBT community has come a long way and achieved much. We don't want to forget the history of bias, but neither should we let this history be our destiny.