Rome Pride
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The LLOG post on "Frociaggine" (6/8/2024) quoted the two glosses for frocio in Wiktionary:
- (vulgar, derogatory, outgroup) gay man, poof, faggot
- (friendly, ingroup) homosexual person, especially a gay man
The "friendly, ingroup" version may be reinforced by last weekend's Il Roma Pride 
— Emma Bubola, "Italians Respond to Pope’s Slur by Taking Francis to Pride", NYT 6/16/2024:
At Saturday’s celebration in Rome, Pope Francis’ image was on cardboard cutouts adorned with flower necklaces. People came dressed as the pope, wore papal hats and said that there was never too much “gayness.”
At Rome’s Pride celebration, bare-chested men in pink angel wings danced to Abba songs, women wrapped in rainbow flags kissed, and shimmering drag queens waved from parade floats. And then there was Pope Francis.
The pontiff’s image was everywhere. On cardboard cutouts adorned with flower necklaces, on glittery banners, on stickers. Romans came to the Pride parade on Saturday dressed like Francis, wearing papal hats and T-shirts that read, “There is never too much frociaggine,” a reference to an offensive slur against gay men that the pope has been accused of using twice in recent weeks.
The slur “is the slogan of the 2024 Pride,” said Martina Lorina, 28, an actress who was holding up a banner bearing the word.
Clearly Ms. Lorina was not the only one:
Will parading the linguistic reappropriation of frociaggine spread some positive valence to the root word frocio, maybe even promoting it to first place, as has happened with the Wiktionary entry for English gay? It's hard to predict the lexicographical future, but that direction seems plausible, whatever happens in the Vatican…
Some nearby past posts:
"The French?", 1/30/2023
"Curated language", 7/9/2021
"People of X", 12/8/2019
"PFL vs. IFL", 7/22/2015
Cervantes said,
June 17, 2024 @ 8:52 am
This is a common process, of course, but the question is why it sometimes becomes okay for people outside of the stigmatized group to use the term, as has happened with gay and queer; and sometimes not okay, as with a word I am not allowed to use but the people to whom it applies are, among each other.
GeorgeW said,
June 17, 2024 @ 9:11 am
@Cervantes: I think there is a huge difference between self denigration and denigration of others. It is the same with the 'n-word,' and I think 'queer,' in the U.S.
Philip Taylor said,
June 17, 2024 @ 9:33 am
I would agree that "there is a huge difference between self denigration and denigration of others", George, but when an African American refers to a fellow African American as "Nigga" is he, in fact, practising "self-denigration" or is he rather reinforcing in-group identity ?
Terry K. said,
June 17, 2024 @ 10:53 am
There's a difference in how the words "queer" and "gay" are used by their in-group versus the n-word. The n-word isn't claimed as a label. And it sometimes gets uses in a way that, while not pejorative, is negatively charged. (Like the f-word.) I've overheard such usage.
KeithB said,
June 17, 2024 @ 12:19 pm
At least for the "n-word" there was a post here a while back that the in-group word is a totally different word than the word imposed from the outside. This was alluded to by Phillip.
J.W. Brewer said,
June 17, 2024 @ 7:04 pm
My question, which can't really be answered except by someone with prior familiarity with relevant "in-group" usage in Italian, is whether the dual usage of "frocio" mentioned above was already matched by comparable dual usage of the derived term "frociaggine," or whether instead "frociaggine" was until the extremely recent past used only pejoratively without any positive in-group usage, such that the alternative positive in-group usage of that separate word is emerging right now in real time as a (not implausible) reaction/response to the ruckus about the pontifical use.
Chas Belov said,
June 17, 2024 @ 7:42 pm
@KeithB: When I (white) was called the n-word by a Black person many years ago, they pronounced the final "r".
@Cervantes: While "gay" has been okay for non-gays to use for many years, I think it has only recently (within the last several years) become okay for non-queers to use "queer" and have it taken as non-pejorative. It could be recency illusion but I've heard it used recently by a newscaster on KCBS radio, a San Francisco station.
Nat said,
June 17, 2024 @ 9:04 pm
I can't recall any point in my life in which "gay" was primarily a slur. It might be used insultingly, by a bigot, but I don't think it's been a slur, at least not for a very long time. On the other hand, the f-word has always been a slur in my experience (despite attempts by Dan Savage to reappropriate it). "Gay" might once have been a slur, decades ago, but it's been bleached of that valence to the point that it's largely considered a neutral descriptor. That's why you can have titles like "GLAAD" or "LGPTQ+". But you would never have the f-word or the n-word used as a neutral descriptor, not even by the in-group. What I mean is that even if used by the in-group, these terms keep their strength as slurs. I don't think that a black person would use the term in a formal speech, even for an entirely black audience, (unless they intentionally wanted to use its force for special effect).
As for why some terms become slurs, I would hazard the guess that it has something to do with the fact that neutral descriptors can be used as insults or with a demeaning or belittling force (contrast "blacks"/"black people" with "the blacks", "the whites", "the asians").
Philip Taylor said,
June 18, 2024 @ 3:05 am
Chas — « When I (white) was called the n-word by a Black person many years ago, they pronounced the final "r" » — I am puzzled by the situation in which this occurred. Do you have any idea why he (or she, but I assume "he") called you "nigger" ? It seems a very odd thing to do.
GeorgeW said,
June 18, 2024 @ 8:12 am
@Phillip Taylor: I agree they are reinforcing group solidarity by using a self-denigrating term. A term which I (White) should not use.
Dropping the final /r/ does seem to soften it, but I still wouldn't use it.
J.W. Brewer said,
June 18, 2024 @ 8:20 am
Even with in-group usage it is hazardous to assume that all members of the in-group mean it the same way (or mean it the same way on each occasion they use a given lexeme) or that they are always understood the same way by all other members of the in-group. And more broadly (outside of in-groups, as it were) there are a variety of words which can variously be a) informal but emotionally neutral; or b) affectionate/intimate; or c) condescending/insulting/overfamiliar, depending on the social context of the particular utterance and sometimes other data like tone of voice.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
June 18, 2024 @ 8:52 am
Pretty much every black comedian in the '90's (and George Carlin, who was "grandfathered" in) has done a bit on this; that's where you should be directing your research.
J.W. Brewer said,
June 18, 2024 @ 9:05 am
I had no idea George Carlin had a bit on Italian slang related to "omosessualita"! That's what I get for ceasing to keep up with his newer material after the late Seventies, I suppose.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
June 18, 2024 @ 9:30 am
J.W. Brewer,
No, that would be asking for a bit too much even from one of our most prescient social observers.
I meant the black in-group / out-group reference thing.
Rodger C said,
June 18, 2024 @ 10:20 am
@Philip Taylor: He was calling Chas Belov "person who is like a brother to me." Maybe he used the rhotic form as a sly (and potentially complicating) reference to CB's race, assuming CB's own idiolect is rhotic.
Philip Taylor said,
June 18, 2024 @ 10:47 am
Rodger — oh, interesting — I had not considered that possibility. Thank you.
Terry K. said,
June 18, 2024 @ 6:11 pm
Perhaps I should clarify that by "the f-word" in my comment (June 17, 2024 @ 10:53 am), I meant "f*ck". (Don't want to type it on this computer.) I see someone who commented after me using "the f-word" for a different word, a slur.
Nat said,
June 20, 2024 @ 6:57 pm
@ Terry
I certainly did misunderstand. Sorry. Thanks for the clarification.
Chas Belov said,
June 21, 2024 @ 12:29 am
@Philip Taylor: I don't presume to read anyone's mind. He was a complete stranger whose car was stopped at a stop sign. I was crossing the street on foot in front of his car. He said "Can you walk any slower, [epithet redacted]?" While his tone was not hostile, he was clearly exasperated at my [lack of] velocity.
Philip Taylor said,
June 21, 2024 @ 2:33 am
Oh, even more interesting, and suggesting that Rodger C's analysis may have been incorrect. So (if I understand American forms of address correctly), he was using it as an alternative to "dude", suggesting that, for some African Americans at least, its usage is no longer restricted to in-group members.
Jake V. said,
June 21, 2024 @ 4:58 pm
As a young (white) man, I can’t recall a single instance where the n-word with the r has been used in a positive way to refer to a white man. Rodger’s analysis does not line up with my experience— if a black man wanted to convey that tone (that tone being amicability), I would expect them to omit the r. I saw a couple of examples of that on a recent thread on r/teachers about nice but surprising things students have said. At least two separate teachers noted that they were white but students called them a “real a** n***a” (or similar) as a compliment.
Pertinent to other comments on this post, some may find the following lines from a spoken word interlude in Kanye West’s “The College Dropout”, “Graduation Day”, interesting:
“ You know what, you's a n***a
And I don't mean that in no nice way” (YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbmNuB7spmA)
Sorry about any formatting errors, I’m not sure how to do the nicer looking quotes.
Philip Taylor said,
June 22, 2024 @ 4:40 am
Not sure why we are being forced to guess at the missing letters, but for me at least, "a**" in "real a** n***a" is completely impenetrable. As to "nicer looking quotes", <blockquote> … </blockquote>.
Jake V. said,
June 22, 2024 @ 11:28 am
I don't mean to have you guessing, it's just typically not my preference to swear in text. The "a**" is "ass", which is so mild of a swear I probably oughtn't to have censored it in the first place.
Thanks for the help with formatting.
Philip Taylor said,
June 22, 2024 @ 11:41 am
Fine, thanks Jake, all understood. There are some words that I would never willingly spell out in full (the "C-word", for example) and for your "a**" I might have written "@ss", except for the fact that in British English "ass" is either an equine (typically, but by no means uniquely) a donkey, or a complete idiot as in "you ass". American English "@ss", with its vulgar connotations, is "@rse" in British English.