brother

   This term was formerly used far more frequently than today to a speaker’s real brother. a male relation born of the same parents. There are plenty of examples in the Shakespeare plays of such usage, the vocative expression sometimes being extended to ‘dear brother’, ‘gentle brother’, etc, Brothers are not always friends, of course, and Prospero says in The Tempest (5:i) ‘For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother/Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive the rankest fault.’ Oliver, in As You Like It (1:1) says ‘What, boy!’ to Orlando, his younger brother, and strikes him. ‘Come, come, elder brother,’ replies Orlando, ‘you are too young in this.’ The use of ‘brother’ was extended to a brother-in-law, as a comment in The Comedy of Errors (5:i) makes clear. Antipholus of Syracuse says of Luciana, his sister-in-law: ‘This fair gentlewoman…did call me brother.’

   This family use of brother continued to be normal until at least the end of the nineteenth century, as the many examples in novels such as The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens and Vanity Fair, by William Thackeray, make clear. Instances are still found in more recent literature, such as Absolute Beginners, by Colin MacInnes, and The Taste of Too Much, by Clifford Hanley. The latter novel has examples of both ‘brother’ and ‘wee brother’, while the former has both ‘brother’ and the unusual ‘half-brother’ used vocatively. The Kennedys, by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, remarks that: ‘Joe Junior and Jack called each other “Brother”, a term neither Bobby nor Teddy ever adopted, as if acknowledging that they were the brothers who counted, the near equals who would struggle for precedence in the future.’ It is interesting that two brothers of four should use brother to each other, but not to the others, but the suggested explanation for such usage seems unduly subtle.

   When ‘brother’ continues to be used as a family term of address in modern times it is likely to be in its shortened form ‘bruv’, which turns the word into a kind of nickname. ‘Bruv’ is decidedly workingclass, English rather than American, and probably regional in usage, being popular in the London area. It matches the short form of ‘Sis’ used to a sister. Middleclass speakers would expect to use the full form ‘brother’, but they no longer automatically use the term to a brother or brother-in-law as was the case in former times.

   Why the use of family relationship terms in direct address faded considerably at the end of the nineteenth century is something of a mystery, but ‘brother’, ‘sister’, and ‘cousin’ were the terms most affected. Comments on the changing fashion are hard to find in literature of the period, though George Eliot does say of Seth, in Adam Bede, that ‘he never called Adam “brother” except in solemn moments.’ The use of the exclamatory vocative ‘good, noble brother’ by Becky Sharp to Joseph Sedley, in William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair is interesting because ‘brother’ is used to describe Joseph’s status as a brother to Amelia. Becky means: you are a good, noble brother to the fortunate woman who is your sister, or that, at least, would be her meaning were she being sincere.

   If ‘brother’ has become less used as a family vocative, its use in other ways continues, especially in religious and trade union contexts. Friars continue to use ‘brother’ to one another, as they have done since the sixteenth century, and religious congregations are frequently ‘brothers and sisters’ when addressed by evangelical speakers. ‘Brother, have you found Christ?’ asks a street-corner preacher, in The Mackerel Plaza, by Peter de Vries. ‘Is he lost again?’ is the irreverent reply. In Gideon Planish, by Sinclair Lewis, some young men form a Socialist group and debate whether to address one another as ‘Comrade’.

   They decide against it. Lewis writes that ‘Gil and Hatch were still too close to the horrors of being called “Brother” by loud evangelical pastors.’ A typical example of ‘dear brothers and sisters’, used by a speaker to a religious community, occurs in The Bell by Iris Murdoch, and most members of such congregations would consider this normal usage. The rather archaic form ‘brethren’ might also occur in such contexts, or when members of a guild or trade-union are being addressed. The use of ‘brother’ to a fellow member of a society has been common since the fourteenth century, reflecting an obvious extension of the family membership notion.

   Earlier still, on the basis that all men are fellow creatures, ‘brother’ was used to address either a stranger or a man already known in a friendly way. Shakespeare says of Henry V, for example, that ‘forth he goes and visits all his host; / Bids them good morrow with a modest smile / And calls them brothers, friends and countrymen’ (Henry the Fifth, 4:Prologue). This common use of ‘brother’ as a friendly term of address gave rise to distorted variants of the word such as ‘buddy’ and ‘bub’, which have now taken on a life of their own, but ‘brother’ can still be used in its full form by one man to another as if it were ‘mate’, ‘friend’, or a similar term. Roger Longrigg’s Daughters of Mulberry has an example of such usage. As with most of the ‘friend’ terms, ‘brother’ can be used sarcastically or in an obviously unfriendly way. The Half Hunter, by John Sherwood, has one man saying to another: ‘This is the last warning you get, brother.’

   In modern times black Americans or West Indians living in Britain are especially likely to use ‘brother’ to one another as a marker of racial unity. Such usage probably reflects the most common occurrence of this term, one which is likely to continue. In general terms it reflects the speaker’s thought that the man being addressed is linked to him in some way, socially, professionally, racially. It may also be used to remind the listener that there are others with whom those links are not shared. It is a complex term, of some ambivalence, the last point perhaps indicated by the exclamatory use of ‘Brother!’ or ‘Oh brother!’ in modern American English. The expression is one of surprise and usually, slight annoyance.