Sometimes people fall from an aircraft and bounce jovially off the ground; sometimes people turn their heads too quickly and tear the fabric keeping their windpipe in place.
I'm not convinced that there's even a soft rule; I think it's just a case of the one or the other way of doing it nebulously sticking, like how sometimes you form a noun with -ness and sometimes you do it with -hood. Which now I think about it is more or less what you're saying, but I don't think it's done consciously at any rate.
I believe "the gays" used to be offensive, and I did notice that myself but it doesn't make sense to met that that would be the distinction!
adjectives as nouns are rarely a good sign in general
I don't think that's true unless you mean within the context of referring to people or something, e.g. the blacks, the poors. But then stuff like "the rich" and "the unemployed" I don't really take issue with.
@MadBob
@feddit.nl