Man vs Boy

RadioactiveFox said:

Not sure this is the best place for this question, however --

I've got a modern-day college student as a close third person narrator and when she describes the males her own age I am not really sure whether to refer to them as 'boys' or 'men'.

I know this is a bit nit-picky, but, hey, I'm interested.

Opinions? Advice?

Click to expand...

IME, once women get to late teens/first few years of college, boy is gone for peers, except when being cutesy.

So I think she'd call them guys, or some other generic term.

Unless she was sexually attracted to them, and thinks of herself as a woman, and then she'd call them men.

Hope that helps.

~suki

I'm in my early twenties and get called boy, guy, man, and--sometimes--ass. It really depends on how I'm acting and my relationship with the other person.

I think the word "man", when spoken by a girl my age, generally has either a commitment connotation, or a professional one; "boy" has a more playful feel and might be used in a friendship--interchangeable with "guy"--or is used when flirting. It really depends on the character and her relationship to the spoken subjects. I personally wouldn't stumble over a line of dialogue that used "boy" when referring to her male counterparts. I hear it a lot.

Then again, I still act like a fifth grader sometimes.

I think it's culturally loaded and value laden. In that age if you wish to emasculate a man, call him a boy. If you want a boy to feel bigger than he is, call him a man. I don't think there's any rule you can use other than how you feel about the situation.

My mum still calls me a lad, and I'm in my forties.

I am a modern-day female college student, and all my male friends (and often female friends) are "guys" to me. I have a roommate who calls her fiancee "my boy." I never hear "men," though. They're just not mature enough for that.

If I'm talking about a guy I'm irritated with, he's just "a kid." Or a jerk, depending on how irritated I am. So yeah, never men.

IMO, I'd say it depends on what level of maturity she sees them as. If they act juvenile or childish, then I'd probably have her call them "boys". But if they act quite mature, then I'd maybe go with men. Also, if they are a few years older than her, I'd use "men" instead of "boys". But it depends on your character and also your preferences.

I stopped using "boys" for my peers sometime around 6th grade or so. But "men" didn't seem right, either--I used "guys", and still do, most of the time.

Even now that my age places my male peers firmly in "man" territory, I usually don't use that term...it seems overly formal, stilted somehow. I think it's a carry-over from my younger years.

Lol, this is how the radio puts it:

A woman in her sixties has slept with a 19yr old 'boy' (yet a few days later) a 17yr old 'man' had raped a young girl.

I think it just depends how your character sees them.

I don't see "boy" or "girl" as pejorative. It just depends on the situation.

A ten-year-old can be a boy (girl) as much as a forty-year old can be a man (woman).

For me it depends on the situation, and I don't necessarily mean maturity-wise.