Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[missdaredevil]

*Boy* am I sick of Hatcher being vulnerable.

What does the boy mean?

Thanks

[Sirius]

It is a term conveying the speaker's sense of frustration or exasperation.

You could also use the word man in this context and provide the same meaning.

[Blossom]

As a matter of interest, when does a boy become a man?

[advoca]

Interestng question, Blossom.

The boundary is not clear cut. In English, a young person or a youth or a teenager may be either male or female. A young male is called a boy, but no gender specific term exists for an intermediate stage between a boy and a man. And there is no clear cut idea of when a boy becomes a man.

In some situations the male is referred to as a �boy� for many years, but when girls go to Oxford University they are told that they should refer to the male students as men, regardless of age.

My female students in Beijing (some of whom are as old as thirty) still refer to the men in their life as �boys.�

�I like boys.�
�I think the boys in the office are sexy.�
�All boys think of is sex.�

Many occasions occur when an adult male could be referred to as a boy. A man or woman will often refer to a male companion as a boyfriend regardless of age. A man�s group of male friends are often "the boys". A young man who has not assumed (or has been denied) the traditional roles of a man or adopted manly behavior might also be called a boy. It may feel uncomfortable to a young male if he is referred to as a �man� before he believes he has assumed adult 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."

To put it in simple terms, a boy becomes a man when he is judged to be mature and conceived as being fully grown up.

There is the same problem with girl and woman. When does a girl become a woman?

The words, "man/boy" and "woman/girl" seem to cause much confusion in society. My advice to my students is to use extreme caution and be thoroughly aware of the semantics behind either option. Somebody might be offended accidentally by another who holds a different view of these words.

[RedRose]

[bud]

That's as good a definition as any.

[advoca]

If that is true then that means there are a hell of a lot of fourteen-year-old men and women.

[RedRose]

[bud]

Well, that's the problem in trying to define something so complicated, Advoca. There will be exceptions to any definition. With the adult-roles definition, what do we call someone with a profound disability who never is able to assume any of those roles? With the maturity definition, what do we call an 18-year-old soldier who is trained to fight but in other ways is still immature?

For practical purposes, any of the definitions offered so far is acceptable even though there are many exceptions to each of them.