Providence Wrote:It's natural for meanings of words and phrases to change over time. Hell, "fa'ggot" itself has went from meaning "to thread/[to] bundle [of] sticks", to "homosexual man", to "dumbass/loser/[something similar]." Though it depends on the context, I normally find it as offensive as I find "dumbass" (i.e. not at all), and I'm pretty much gay, myself.
This is the relevant part.
A bunch of idiots took a perfectly normal word out of the English language and started using it to belittle a group of people. Same thing with the word "niggardly," which used to mean "cheap," but we all know what it means now. "papaya" is a word that's used in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, specifically where they're carrying papayas of wood on the haunted mountain.
Edit: now I know what papaya means.