Description
Before the Word Was Queer explores how the English dictionary recorded and constructed meanings around sexuality across three centuries of linguistic change. Stephen Turton’s groundbreaking study examines the period from 1600 to 1930, a crucial era when dictionaries became increasingly standardized and authoritative in defining sexual concepts and terminology.
Turton demonstrates how lexicographers made choices about which sexual terms to include, define, or omit—decisions that reflected and reinforced social attitudes toward sexuality. By analyzing dictionary entries, usage notes, and etymologies, the book reveals how language both documented changing sexual understandings and actively shaped cultural perceptions. This work challenges assumptions about the naturalness of our sexual vocabulary and illuminates the complex relationship between language, identity, and historical change.
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