Thought of the morning

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1436633]

Comments

[andrewducker]

Yeah - looks like it's different in America - where it's from "bum" which is from "to loaf" in German - referring to people begging for money.

I suspect we picked up "That's a bummer" from there, but some part of the UK (at least) also use it as slang for a gay person.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what is confusing you so much. There are two seperate words here - "bummer" meaning "downer" and "bummer" meaning "one who bums" - with two seperate etymologies. Both are common and both are unrelated.

[andrewducker]

See, I hadn't realised they were unrelated until I went and looked at the etymology earlier today :->