boy

   A very common term of address throughout the English-speaking world, in modern times as well as in the past. The vocative is extensively used in Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, normally to young men, occasionally to older men and sometimes to girls who are temporarily disguised as young men. Schoolboys are especially likely to be called ‘boy’ by their teachers, though they may not like it. ‘I wished to hell he’d stop calling me “boy” all the time,’ says the young hero of The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D.Salinger, when being interviewed by an elderly schoolmaster. He is sixteen years old at the time, and happens to like the word ‘boy’ as an exclamation. ‘“Boy!” I said. I also say “boy!” quite a lot. Partly because I have a lousy vocabulary and partly because I act quite young for my age sometimes.’ This exclamatory use of ‘boy’ is little more than an almost meaningless noise, expressing surprise, admiration, and similar emotions. There are examples of ‘boy’ used to schoolboys throughout Dandelion Days, by Henry Williamson, a novel in which a father also addresses his son as ‘my boy’, a more affectionate term.

   ‘Boy’ itself is either neutral, or slightly aggressive. Dickens comments on the word in Nicholas Nickleby: The mutual inspection was at length brought to a close by Ralph withdrawing his eyes, with a great show of disdain, and calling Nicholas ‘a boy.’ This word is much used as a term of reproach by elderly gentlemen towards their juniors: probably with a view of deluding society into the belief that if they could be young again, they wouldn’t on any account.

   Between social equals, ‘boy’ becomes a more flattering term of address as the age of the person to whom it is said increases. A group of men might well be addressed as ‘boys’ by another adult man or woman, in a club or at a social gathering. Edna O’Brien comments on such usage in The Country Girls, when a girl says to two men who are bordering on middleage, ‘Must get a flower, boys.’ ‘Boys!’ says the narrator, another young girl, ‘how could she be so false.’ In Howard’s End, by E.M.Forster, a woman in her thirties calls her fiancé, an older man, ‘boy’ in an affectionate way. This usage resembles the use of ‘old boy’ (see separate entry). ‘Boy’ was the normal term for addressing male negro slaves in former times, and was also used to address male servants of other races in many countries where whites were the ruling class. The use of ‘boy’ to a black American adult would now be considered offensive. This is known to the white speakers who continue to use the term, so that ‘boy’ in such circumstances must be counted as a positive insult. Carson McCullers in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, has a mild comment on this usage.

   He is talking of a black doctor: The quiet insolence of the white race was one thing he had tried to keep out of his mind for years. In the streets and around white people he would keep the dignity on his face and always be silent. When he was younger it was ‘Boy’ - but now it was ‘Uncle’. In Rabbit Redux, by John Updike, a white man is talking to a black American and says: ‘You talk a cool game, but I think you panicked, boy.’ ‘Don’t boy me’, is the reply. Updike continues: ‘Rabbit is startled; he had meant it neutrally, one athlete calling to another.’

   The reaction of this black American to being called ‘boy’ is as nothing compared to that of Coriolanus, in the closing scene of Shakespeare’s play of that name. Aufidius actually calls Coriolanus ‘thou boy of tears’, but Coriolanus fastens on the word ‘boy’ and repeats it several times. Almost the last word he utters, before he is cut to pieces by the conspirators, is ‘Boy!’, still unable to believe that the word has been applied to him.