Boy

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For other uses, see Boy (disambiguation).

A boy is a young male, generally a human child or adolescent, as contrasted to a female counterpart, which is a girl.

Image:Palestine occupation54.jpg The term "boy" is primarily used to indicate biological sex distinctions, cultural gender role distinctions, or both, but the term in also used, and enters frequently in compounds, in more specific meanings that often transcend the primary use.

Contents

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Etymology

The origin of the English word boy, recorded since 1154, is unclear; it is probably related to East Frisian boi, Old Norse bófi, Dutch boef "(criminal) knave, rogue", and German Bube. These apparently all have their origin in baby talk (like the word baby itself) (Buck 1949: 89).

But there is a theory that English "boy" derives from an Anglo-Saxon word *boia = "boy or servant", thus explaining the English placenames Boyton and Boycott. If so, the word may have originated from the Celtic tribe called the Boii, who formerly lived in Bohemia but were driven out by the Marcomanni German tribe taking the area over in Roman times. In the dispersal, many Boii may have become slaves or servants, and their name became a word for "servant". (The same happened later to many Slav people, whence the word slave.)

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Scope

An adult male human is a man, but when age is not a crucial factor both terms can be interchangable, e.g. 'boys and their toys' applies equally to adults, 'Are you mice or men?' equally to young boys.

The age boundary is not clear cut, rather dependent on the context or even on individial circumstances. A young man who has not assumed (or has been denied) the traditional roles of a man might also be called a boy. It may feel uncomfortable to a young male upon being referred to as a "man" before he believes he has assumed these roles, such as having a career, a family, a wife, and fathering children. Conversely, it may feel uncomfortable to a male to be called a "boy" if he believes he has assumed the traditional roles of a "man." In mother's/mama's boy, the word emphatically implies a male (minor or adult in years) is too immature to be independent.

In English, a youth or a teenager may be either male or female. No gender-specific term exists for an intermediate stage between a boy and a man, except "young man".

Many occasions occur when an adult male is commonly be referred to as a boy. A person's boyfriend or loverboy may be of any age, even a 'working' toyboy (though usually younger then the client as youth is generally considered attractive). In terms (used pejoratively or neutral) for homosexuals such as batty boy (alongside batty man; from bottom) or bum boy age is not essential, but the connotation can strenghten insulting use.

A man's group of male friends are often "the boys". It is most common to refer to men, irrespective of age or even in an adult age group, as boys in the context of a team (especially all-male), such as old boys for networking of adult men who attended the same school(s) as boys. In sports 'the boys' commonly refers to the team mates; e.g. UK football managers quite often refer to their players as "The boy so-and-so" and this usage is by no means restricted to the youngest players, though it is rarely applied to the most senior.

In some cases, a word using boy is used merely to designate the age of the person, irrespective of the function, as in altar boy, a minor acting as liturgical acolyte. Thus the compound -man can then be replaced by -boy, as in footboy; or boy is simply added, either as a prefix (e.g. in boy-racer) or as a suffix (e.g. in Teddy Boy).

An adult equivalent (with or without -man) is not to be expected when -boy designates an apprentice or lowest rank implying specific on the job training if promotion is to be obtained, as in kitchen-boy. Similarly schoolboy only applies to minors; the modern near-synonym pupil originally designated a minor in Roman law as being under a specific adult's authority, as in loco parentis.

In such terms as 'city boy' or 'home boy', the age notion is at most anachronistic, as they indicate any male who grew up (or by extention lived a long time) in a certain environment.

Historically, in countries such as the U.S. and South Africa, "boy" was used as a disparaging, racist insult towards black males of African descent, recalling their subservient status even in the 20th century (originally slavery, evolved to race segregation viz. Apartheid) and alleged infantility, and many still consider it offensive in that context to this day.

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Specific uses and compounds

The following subsections will treat some specific contexts where the term boy is frequently used, as such or in compound terms, often 'emancipated' from the age notion as such.

They also show that similar semantic broadness applies to many languages, notably Indo-European; to avoid lengthy duplication, cases may simply be linked here.

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Military

The term 'our boys' is commonly used for a nation's soldiers, often with sympathy. Given the physical demands of battle, recruits are preferably in their physical prime, but adult professionals remain included in the term as long as they remain in service.

Thus boy can enter in the nick name for a particular nation's soldiers, e.g. the US (infantry) doughboy;

Furthermore, specific terms refer to minors used in the armed forces:

  • drummer boy
  • ship's boy is an apprentice rank, notably in the Royal Navy; until the middle of the 20th century, they were the only Navy staff subject -like their civilian age-peers, at home and in school- to physical punishment, usually spanking, which was traditionally administered on the bare bottom (as in English public schools; the adults were lashed on the backside above the waist), either formally (ordered in court martial, publicly executed on deck) or, more often but less severely, summary; the same was true of a midshipman, also a minor, but indicated with -man rather then -boy, possibly reflecting their higher status as future navan officers.
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Domestic, residential and similar 'personal' attendents

  • Houseboy, or often boy for short, became a common term for domestic staff, notably non-European natives in the Asian and African colonies, adopted as such in other languages, e.g. in Dutch and French (also in the Belgian colonies).
  • Bell-boy was originally (1851) a ship's bell-ringer, later (1861) a hotel page
  • busboy is a rank in restaurants etc. below (head) waiter, fitting for trainees but may be held by ripe adults, even under younger (e.g. better qualified) superiors
  • page from the Greek pais, again in many languages, already in hellenistic times paides basilikoi 'royal (i.e. court) boys'
  • cabana boy
  • cabin boy
  • hamam oğlanı 'bath boy' working as tellak in a Turkish bath; long also available for homo-erotic pleasure, hence still a euphemism for homosexual
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Rural life and professions

  • Cowboy originally designated a herdsboy employed as cowherd, but lost the age notion, first retaining the connotatio of inferior status, later applying to the whole ranch life culture
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Commercial and other services

Often the term boy enters in positions of the trainee type, such as stable boy (a junior stable hand).

  • office boy and copy boy refer to a young(est) employee (i.e. lacking experience), in training and/or performing menial services such as making photocopies.
  • even into the early 20th century, the British empire systematiclly employed boy clerks, including a specific rank of boy copyist, recruited by examination (despite the name, requiring schooling) and reserved for candidates aged 15-18, not retained in that rank after the age of 20

Certain jobs require so little training or formal qualifications that they can easily be performed as student job, and thus tend to be filled mostly or exclusively by minors, as it wouldn't 'pay' to employ an adult at or above minimum wage. Thus an equivalent word with the compound man (or similar) may be the rarer one, or even inexistent. Examples include delivery boy, errand boy, messenger boy and various specific terms naming the product to deliver, such as paperboy (closest adult counterpart postman), pizza boy (alongside pizzaman).

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Role play

In BDSM, the term boy, often in the deliberate misspelling boi, sometimes specified (notably 'domestic' houseboi), refers not to junior age, but to the submissive position in the role play (e.g. father-son, teacher-pupil, owner-slave) at the masters beck and call, also known as bottom, especially if this implies submitting to discipline by the dominant 'top' who may not only command and humiliate the boi at his discretion but even administer punishment (often spanking, making the term bottom most appropriate) at his (dis)pleasure, even undeservedly.

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Popular etymology

Some words contain 'boy' in English 'by mistake', actually referring to a (near)homophone such as the French bois 'wood' (e.g. in low boy, a type of furniture)

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Similar youth-related terms

  • cadet
  • knave (O.E. cnafa, cognate with Dutch knaap & German Knabe and Knappe, boy), originally a male child, a boy (Chaucer, Canterbury Tales: Clerks Tale, I. 388). Like Latin puer, the word was early used as a name for any boy or lad employed as a servant, and so of male servants in general (Chaucer: Pardoners Tale, 1. 204), and especially a journeyman. The current use of the word for a man who is dishonest and crafty, a rogue, was however an early usage, and is found in Layamon (c. 1205). In playing-cards the lowest court card of each suit, the jack, representing a medieval servant, is still called the knave (See also VALET.)
  • the term junior 'younger', antonym of senior, occurs in titles as 'lower grade', in terms of service years (not age) or even merely hierarchical, on criteria regardless of experience; equivalent is puisne
  • lad, or in the Scottish diminutive form laddie (recorded since 1546) : known since c.1300 as ladde "foot soldier," also "young male servant" (attested as a surname from c.1100), possibly from a Scandinavian language (cf. Norwegian -ladd, in compounds for "young man"), perhaps originally a plural of the pp. of lead (v.), thus "one who is led" (by a lord); present meaning "boy, youth, young man" attested from c.1440; in Northern England, and particularly in the county of Lancashire, males of all ages jokingly refer to themselves as being a Lancashire "lad". Lass(ie) is the female counterpart.
  • vassal stems from from an Old Celtic root *wasso- "young man, squire" (e.g. Welsh gwas "youth, servant," Breton goaz "servant, vassal, man," Irish foss "servant")
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See also

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Sources and references

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de:Junge es:Niño fr:Garçon ga:Buachaill nl:Jongen no:Gutt ja:少年 pt:Menino simple:Boy sv:Pojke zh:男孩

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