The word "faggot" keeps popping up in the news, and each time it's taken just as poorly as the time before. Alec Baldwin used it derogatorily towards a photographer last year. John Lacy who was playing Big Daddy in a California production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was fired after an audience member screamed the slur at the stage during a performance and the actor jumped off the stage and got physical. And then earlier this month, actor Jonah Hill was caught on camera yelling at a paparazzo to "suck my d*ck, you faggot."

The last one surprised many as Hill is very open on his views of gay rights; he has been overtly supportive of the LGBT community.

Of course, after the incident, Hill went on a media blitz apologizing to everyone and their mom about how awful he felt, and he really didn't mean it, and he hoped that everyone would forgive him and go see his new movie 22 Jump Street.

Regardless of how sorry he is that it happened, or that he got caught, the incident raises a few questions. Firstly, where does this word even come from and why is it so offensive?

And, wait, is it still offensive?

Faggot really sounds nasty. As opposed to calling someone gay, which can still be taken poorly, faggot is akin to calling a Jewish person a kike or a black person the "N" word, which I won't even write. When someone who is not of the same background uses the word, it's with a distinct purpose - to be a jerk. But where did it come from?

You may have heard the British use the word "fag" to mean cigarette, and if you heard that when you were 10 years old you probably got a nice giggle on. But really the term comes from a bundle of firewood. According to certain sources, the term may or may not have gotten its negative connotation from the old women who used to gather bundles of sticks for a living. This occupation wasn't exactly lauded, and somehow comparing someone to a poor old lady who could only find work picking up sticks became an insult. "Ha ha you're poor and old and you pick up sticks!" (And some people really love the British sense of humor).

Another thought on the word is that the shorthand version, "fag," referred to the act of "fagging," which was done by young private school boys in England. Fagging meant they completed "duties" for their older peers. These duties ranged from sweeping the floor to performing sexual acts, two wildly different types of favors. The latter may have attributed to the term ending up a homosexual slur.

A third possibility I've come across is that homosexual men were burned at the stake just like sticks, AKA fags.

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