I’m the old person. If you are old too, here’s Jay Smooth’s four-year-old explanation of this expression:

Dan Devine at Yahoo! Sports addresses a current “no homo” controversy very well, so go read his entire piece.

Summary: On Sunday, Indiana Pacers’ player Roy Hibbert was fined $75K for using “no homo” and “motherfuckers” in a post-game interview on Saturday. Saying he felt that in the past he hadn’t defended his teammate Paul George as well as he could have, he continued:

I really felt that I let Paul down in terms of having his back when LeBron [James] was scoring in the post or getting to the paint, because they stretched me out so much. No homo.

(He also responded to a question about finishing only 10th in sportswriters’ Defensive Player of the Year voting with, “You know what, because y’all motherfuckers don’t watch us play throughout the year, to tell you the truth. That’s fine. I’m going to be real with you. And I don’t care if I get fined.”)

Hibbert apologized in a statement on Sunday, before the fine was announced:

I am apologizing for insensitive remarks made during the postgame press conference after our victory over Miami Saturday night. They were disrespectful and offensive and not a reflection of my personal views. I used a slang term that is not appropriate in any setting, private or public, and the language I used definitely has no place in a public forum, especially over live television. I apologize to those who I have offended, to our fans and to the Pacers’ organization. I sincerely have deep regret over my choice of words last night.

He also reached out to Jason Collins, the longtime player who recently came out in a Sports Illustrated story (the responses to which we tackled in SorryWatch), asking on Twitter for Collins to follow him (“would like to discuss something’s with you”).

“No homo” and its predecessor “pause” have a relatively long history of which I was oblivious (I told you, I’m old). Both mean, essentially, “ooh, I just realized I said something that might make you think I am gay, if you’re really into goofy double entendres, but let me assure you, I am not.” In 2009, Jonah Weiner wrote a good piece for Slate about how the terms rose to popularity: In “Run This Town,” Kanye West rapped, “It’s crazy how you can go from being Joe Blow to everybody on your dick—no homo.” The rapper Cam’ron popularized the term and Lil Wayne made it still more mainstream. And Jay Z was using “pause” as far back as 1996 (a good example of how it’s deployed can be seen in this clip shot at Madison Square Garden, in which Spike Lee says of the Knicks roster, “I like the trade — I like Zach, I like Fred, I like Dick” and the interviewer interjects, “Pause!”)

I love Jay Smooth’s explanation about why “no homo” is unacceptable, and I like Dan Devine’s parsing of the entire Hibbert story. I’d even argue that we can keep “Pause”…as long as we use it for all manner of inadvertently sexual references, much like “That’s what she said.”

In case I need to spell this out: The problem with “no homo” is that homo is inherently an offensive word; there’s no redeeming it. “Pause” is super-flexible. (That’s what she said.) I hasten to add that I think it’s often OK to make jokes about edgy stuff. Jay Smooth acknowledges that there is something funny in “no homo” jokes, even as we have to resist them because the humor rests in marginalizing an already marginalized population. But I think The Lonely Island’s “No Homo” song is funny because its point is mocking the sexual insecurity from which “no homo” springs, and the desperate need that frat-boy/jock/hip-hop-loving guys have to NOT be perceived as gay…no matter what.

As for Hibbert’s apology, it’s awright. Apologizing and reaching out privately to Collins before being fined was good. Saying his words were offensive, not that they were taken out of context or something, was also good. However, “not a reflection of my personal views” could use some clarification. You don’t personally view yourself as a homo? You don’t personally view homos as bad? What does that sentence mean? And “I used a slang term that is not appropriate in any setting, private or public, and the language I used definitely has no place in a public forum, especially over live television” is also unclear. If something is unacceptable in public and in private, why is it more unacceptable in public? Or is this sentence somehow distinguishing between “no homo” and “motherfuckers”? I’m baffled. And not just because I’m old.