chap, old

   A fairly popular variant of ‘old boy’ or ‘old man’, used in a friendly way to boys or men of any age. In a random selection of fifty British novels, old chap occurred 26 times. This compares with 152 ‘old boy’ examples, 82 ‘old man’ examples. The instances of ‘old chap’ were spread between at least twenty of the fifty novels, the speakers tending to be middle-class males, and often using a sympathetic tone. They also tended to have been born in the 1920s or 1930s. In War Brides, by Lois Battle, a young Australian girl, who addresses her father by his first name, also calls him ‘old chap’ (and ‘mate’). ‘Old chappie’ is occasionally found. The ‘old’ is, of course, friendly and not a comment on the age of the person addressed. In Thursday Afternoons, by Monica Dickens, a doctor says to a young boy: ‘Look here, old chap, supposing you go with Nurse and play something for a bit while your mother and I have a chat?’ Chap with the red whiskers, thou An interesting example of an ad hoc vocative, using a descriptive phrase. The speaker in this case in Captain Peleg, in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. He tells another man: ‘Spring, thou green pants.’