sailor

   Used typically to a uniformed sailor by, e.g., a waitress in a café. ‘Soldier’ would be similarly used.

   The jokey message ‘Hello, sailor’ was at one time a regular sight in British sea-side towns, displayed on funny hats worn by girls on the spree. ‘What think you, sailors?’ is said by Viola to those who have survived the ship-wreck in Twelfth Night (l:ii). As it happens, there is an instance of ‘my young soldier’ used vocatively in the same play (4:i).

   In The Trumpet Major, by Thomas Hardy, Jim Cornick innocently says in Anne Garland’s hearing that Robert Loveday, the man she loves, is courting another girl. Someone tries to prevent him from continuing, but Anne says: ‘Tell it all, sailor.’

   In ordinary colloquial use, civilians might address a sailor as ‘sailor-boy’ or ‘sailorman’. The latter occurs in Shipmaster, by Gwyn Griffin, where one officer in a submarine says to another, jokingly, ‘Oh, you vile old sailorman!’