BAG PEOPLE

plural noun (People and Society) Homeless people who live on the streets and carry their possessions in carrier bags. Etymology: Formed by compounding (people whose main characteristic is the bags they carry) after the model of bag lady (see below). A tramp who carries his personal effects in a bag has been called a bagman in Australian English since the end of the nineteenth century. History and Usage: The earliest references to bag people come from New York City in the seventies, and are in the form bag lady (sometimes written baglady) or shopping-bag lady; at that time it was mostly elderly homeless women who piled their belongings into plastic carrier bags and lived on the streets. By the mid eighties both the phenomenon and the term had spread to other US cities and to the UK, and sensitivity to sexist language had produced bag person along with its plural form bag people. They even had a couple of black-clad bagladies sitting silently on straight chairs by the door. Martin Amis Money (1984), p. 105 Peterson saw The Avenue's funky charm and its cast of misfits as inspirations for his painting. 'I like the bag people and the alcoholics and the street people.' Los Angeles Times (Ventura County edition) 12 May 1988, section 9, p. 2