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RayK and the Q-word.
It's possible that I'm just lexically hypersensitive, but has anybody else noticed that Ray says "queer"? I can only recall one instance right now - it might well have been the only one - but in "Eclipse," when he notices something hinky about the coffin that's been brought in, he says "Something's queer." It's not a common usage anymore - outside of people who've been reading a lot of Tolkien or Frances Hodgson Burnett - and, dammit, I want to be able to explain this without reference to the writers (although, hey, what's going on *there*?).
One possibility: Ray's so very very very straight, and his world is so devoid of all homosexuality, that he can actually use queer in its original denotative sense without further consideration. I suspect that this is the Occam's Razor answer, but hella unsatisfying.
Another: Ray falls into the category of "I am it so I'm allowed to say it," and his use of the word queer is intended as a signal to people who know that rule. He was really hoping that Fraser would catch on and distract him from whatever was going on outside the crypt by pushing him up against the wall and blowing him, but unfortunately Fraser is one of those rare individuals who might actually fall under explanation one (or more interested in catching the bad guys than responding to subtle signals of sexual availability from his partner, who, when he knows him better, will probably realize that Fraser needs, like, a Powerpoint presentation and/or a baseball bat to the head to notice signals of sexual availability and even then may just flee rather than acknowledge them).
Another: Ray may or may not be bent, but he's been skinny and nearsighted all his life, and got called queer at least once in adolescence. In a show of dork defiance that he probably wouldn't admit to anymore, he looked up the dictionary definition of the word and reclaimed it, and now uses it out of habit.
Another: Ray's been reading The Lord of the Rings, The Secret Garden and/or A Little Princess.
The other instance where "queer" pops up is in "The Ladies' Man" - Ray is fumbling to explain to Beth why he's here, and Beth, who is, admittedly, kinda crazy at this point, interrupts him with, "I'm here? Because I'm here? Because I'm queer?" Hard to say whether Beth is talking about herself in the first two 'I'm here's, and the third one, well, who knows. Ray's response ("Kinda nutty, huh.") gives no sign of responding to the word "queer" in any case, no matter who he thinks it's being applied to, though, again, he seems to take it in its uninflected sense, to mean 'strange', which is some kind of seriously willful misreading, because "I'm here, I'm queer" is not to be understood in that sense. (And what's the traditional end to that line, anyway? "I'm/we're not going anywhere?" Apropos...)
And, um, I'm going to stop before I actually attempt to write an essay based on two occurrences of a given monosyllable in a character's twenty-two episode run, because, yes.
One possibility: Ray's so very very very straight, and his world is so devoid of all homosexuality, that he can actually use queer in its original denotative sense without further consideration. I suspect that this is the Occam's Razor answer, but hella unsatisfying.
Another: Ray falls into the category of "I am it so I'm allowed to say it," and his use of the word queer is intended as a signal to people who know that rule. He was really hoping that Fraser would catch on and distract him from whatever was going on outside the crypt by pushing him up against the wall and blowing him, but unfortunately Fraser is one of those rare individuals who might actually fall under explanation one (or more interested in catching the bad guys than responding to subtle signals of sexual availability from his partner, who, when he knows him better, will probably realize that Fraser needs, like, a Powerpoint presentation and/or a baseball bat to the head to notice signals of sexual availability and even then may just flee rather than acknowledge them).
Another: Ray may or may not be bent, but he's been skinny and nearsighted all his life, and got called queer at least once in adolescence. In a show of dork defiance that he probably wouldn't admit to anymore, he looked up the dictionary definition of the word and reclaimed it, and now uses it out of habit.
Another: Ray's been reading The Lord of the Rings, The Secret Garden and/or A Little Princess.
The other instance where "queer" pops up is in "The Ladies' Man" - Ray is fumbling to explain to Beth why he's here, and Beth, who is, admittedly, kinda crazy at this point, interrupts him with, "I'm here? Because I'm here? Because I'm queer?" Hard to say whether Beth is talking about herself in the first two 'I'm here's, and the third one, well, who knows. Ray's response ("Kinda nutty, huh.") gives no sign of responding to the word "queer" in any case, no matter who he thinks it's being applied to, though, again, he seems to take it in its uninflected sense, to mean 'strange', which is some kind of seriously willful misreading, because "I'm here, I'm queer" is not to be understood in that sense. (And what's the traditional end to that line, anyway? "I'm/we're not going anywhere?" Apropos...)
And, um, I'm going to stop before I actually attempt to write an essay based on two occurrences of a given monosyllable in a character's twenty-two episode run, because, yes.