Talk:boy

Hebrew

Regarding the Hebrew entry: In my opinion, the link should be made from the word itself, not from its transcription. This is how all other non-latin scripts are dealt with, isn't it? Unless, of course, there is a bidirectionality-related problem here which I fail to see... T42 17:09 Jul 13, 2003 (UTC)

Connotations

The connotations here are tricky, and I'm not sure how best to deal with them. I'm tempted to mark it for cleanup -dmh 04:38, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Done. — LlywelynII 13:59, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Definitions don't really cover it...

Seems like the definitions don't really cover the usage, IMHO. Generally, at least in the English I've encountered, "boy" means a younger male, but it might be used to talk about men in a way that makes them seem more familiar or younger. Not sure what the term for this is, but it might be diminuitive, like a nick-name.

It's also sometimes used to mean "son" as in "he's my boy". Maerk 00:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Loogie Awards muck-up

is certainly a notable use of the phrase but it's been heavily mythologized.

Modern Aussie sources tend to claim the term is innocent in Australia and Newton awkwardly/deftly extricated himself from seeming offensive to an aggrieved to over-the-top Ali. In fact, as the other cites show, it has a loong history in Australia and New Zealand (in fact everywhere else in the Commonwealth) and Newton wouldn't've said it among aborigines even at the time. Instead, it was a catchphrase of an ad Newton was in and he was being cheeky, playing the two senses against each other. If Ali wasn't already part of a script, it was his gentle lifelines that saved the situation from the powerful offense the rest of the room took on his behalf.

It belongs here... but under the offensive sense Newton toyed with and actually keyed up, not the innocent one he feigned. It is, in fact, an excellent example of the term becoming something too offensive for polite company. — LlywelynII 13:59, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

RFC discussion: January 2015

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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boy

(Turkish) Etymology 1 and etymology 2 are exactly the same. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 14:22, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Or at least the spellings are identical. Perhaps there are two different Old Turkic nouns 'bod' and two different Proto-Turkic nouns 'bod' too. Renard Migrant (talk) 17:18, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I suspect they copied the text from the first etymology and forgot to change it. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 19:17, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

You're right that's more likely. Renard Migrant (talk) 21:03, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

{{look}}

English etymology

Etymonline disagrees with the etymology presented here. 62.65.33.194 09:58, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Non-human boys

Some discussions related to the addition/revision of senses covering non-human boys are at Wiktionary:Tea room/2019/December#girl_and_boy_plants,_etc (Talk:girl#Can_be_used_for_non-humans_too) and Wiktionary:Tea room/2020/February#woman. - -sche (discuss) 23:51, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Usage notes

Its easy to spot nonnative speakers when they use boy incongruously ... I remember working one job in a heavily touristed area and being asked "do you hire girls here, or just boys?" His accent was flawless but I knew right away he was from Eastern Europe. I want to help English learners but I cant keep on typing up stuff like this and expecting it to stand unchallenged. Still, maybe somebody somewhere has written up a usage guide telling English learners the ins and outs of the overlapping meanings of words like boy, guy, and man, which to use as a term of self-address and which one for other people. It's surely less complicated than e.g. Japanese with its sixty-odd pronouns, but still complicated enough that I'm sure someone has considered it worthy of a usage guide. —Soap— 12:31, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

I am still interested in this ... I was a lot less sure of myself when I wrote this three years ago ... but I still dont really know what to write. —Soap— 10:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Object boy

In a recent discussion with others I found some people (including myself) use boy to mean thing, like "I went to the store and picked up a frozen pizza. That boy cost me five bucks.". I feel like this usage is common enough for cites to exist but I wouldn't have any myself. -- Mocha2007 (talk) 01:41, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Here are some non-citable examples detailing the usage I'm referring to:

• This boy cost me $500 better throw it away (referring to a console)
• That's one icy boy (referring to an icepack)

Unfortunately the other senses make it hard to find usage in this sense. -- Mocha2007 (talk) 01:59, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Similar in use to guy then. The second usage looks like a reference to the "who would win?" meme, which uses "one (adjective) boi" or "some (adjective) bois" .... unless that use is itself a reference to some other meme. I dont know how much trust we put in memes, but the first usage looks like part of the standard language and thus something that's here to stay. —Soap— 00:56, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

bad boy is often used this way. Equinox ◑ 01:19, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

French derivation

The Middle English dictionary at this URL states that boy is a loanword from French. Ive seen this etymology before, but we dont list it. Even if it's now seen as less probable, should we at least mention it? —Soap— 10:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Boy of Tunis

on the Dark Continent page we have this quote:

1879 March 12, The Sydney Morning Herald:

De Lesseps, the engineer, has been visiting the Boy of Tunis, and trying to get his consent to the scheme for piercing tho isthmus of Zaber, and opening up communication with the interior of the Dark Continent by water.

Who is this kid, and why does he get to decide where intrepid explorers can and cannot go?

Is it possible this is an alternate spelling of bey? On the other hand, if tho is supposed to be the, maybe both words are misscanned. I will look at it if I can get to the original when I have a chance. Lollipop (talk) 19:14, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

i changed it now on the basis that it's far more likely than not. i found it in a different newspaper ... i couldnt find SMH. amusing to see how far the incorrect Boy of Tunis interpretation has spread, and they arent just copies of the one quote we had. One story tells us that

The boys originally welcomed France as an ally against the Turkish sultan, and the financial extravagance of the boy of Tunis after 1850 opened his country

He ate too much imported icecream, i guess? Anyway that's partly why this wasn't so blindingly obvious to me as it might seem. Plus I was away from home and couldnt check these things. —Soap— 23:05, 9 September 2024 (UTC)