mate

   The original meaning of this word was ‘one with whom one shared meat’, but it has long had the more general sense of ‘companion’, ‘friend’. It is a very commonly used vocative in British English amongst workingclass speakers. It is often used to address a stranger in a friendly way, and indeed, is probably more used to strangers than it is to genuine mates, or friends, of the speaker. ‘Mate’ is occasionally used by a woman to a man, and perhaps a wife to a husband. In the latter case there may be an intentional reference to mates in the sense of a male-female pair, though ‘mates’ in this context usually refers to animals rather than to people. ‘Mate’ is also the professional title of a ship’s officer, and there is little doubt that the general use of ‘mate’ began with sailors.

   The true vocative that derives from ‘mate’ is the diminutive ‘matey’, which is normally friendly but upsets the hero of Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. ‘“I hear you drink a lot, matey.” Arthur didn’t like being called “matey,” it put his back up straight away.’ It is normally used to men, though in Ngaio Marsh’s Opening Night the encouraging message ‘Keep your pecker up matey’ is written to a young girl. You’ll do, mateys,’ is said by a farmer to a group of men in A CackHanded War, by Edmund Blishen. ‘Mates’ could have been used equally well in this instance. ‘Mate’ itself, used in a friendly way, occurs fairly commonly in British novels. There are examples in Within and Without, by John Harvey; Under the Volcano, by Malcolm Lowry; Thirteen Days, by Ian Jefferies, where ‘matey’ is also used; The Liberty Man, by Gillian Freeman; The Limits of Love, by Frederic Raphael, which includes ‘matey’ used in a friendly way, but at least one example of ‘mate’ which is unfriendly. Up the City Road, by John Stroud, has a young London girl saying to a male friend: ‘Buy us a drink, mate, I m skint.’ She also uses his first name, but the switch to ‘mate’ is perhaps deliberately designed to remind him of their friendship. In War Brides, by Lois Battle, it is a young Australian woman who calls her father ‘mate’. She also calls him ‘old chap’, and addresses him by his first name. In the same novel, another young Australian woman says to her husband: ‘We’ll be all right, matey.’