The Gay Divorcee, 1934
There’s an old Vaudeville routine that goes, “If I had some bread I could make a ham sandwich if I had some ham.”
I love words, and I get ticked off when people misuse them. A word or phrase is a shortcut, an abbreviation for a thought or longer sequence of words. The phrase “ham sandwich,” for example, is a shortcut to the mental picture of two pieces of bread with ham, and likely other ingredients, between them. If you don’t have any ham, don’t call whatever you’re making a ‘ham sandwich.’
So it is with the debate about ‘same-sex marriage.’ Marriage is, by definition, a legally recognized union for life between one man and one woman who have taken vows to be exclusively loyal to each other.
