sonny

   In use since the late nineteenth century as a term of address for a boy, either the son of the speaker or one unrelated to him. Such usage normally indicates a friendly attitude on the part of the speaker.

   The term can become condescending, and perhaps insulting, when used to a man. Lydia, by E.V.Cunningham, has an elderly New York cab-driver say to his fare, a man of thirty-five, ‘Now just sit back, sonny, and enjoy this ride.’ In The Magic Army, by Leslie Thomas, an American soldier says to a colleague: ‘We got you here to climb, so climb, sonny.’ In The Late Risers, by Bernard Wolfe, an American policeman uses ‘sonny’ to a newspaper reporter in a decidedly unfriendly way.

   ‘Sonny’ is Occasionally used as a first name in English-speaking countries, though its use in that role must create problems at times for its bearer. Under the Greenwood Tree, by Thomas Hardy, has the very curious: ‘Look here, my sonnies,’ he argued to his wife, whom he often addressed in the plural masculine for economy of epithet merely….’