rf@wu1.UUCP (12/15/83)
The usage of "girl" by a male boss to describe his office's
secretarial staff parallels the Elizabethan lord's use of
"youse" when speaking to his social inferiors. In Elizabethan
English there were three second person pronouns: "youse" for
inferiors, "you" for equals, and "thou" for superiors.
When a male boss uses the term "girl" as a plural noun
describing adult women ("the girls") or as part of a second
person plural pronoun ("you girls"), he is using a term intended
for speaking to inferiors. In the same way, the phrase "boys,
boys" used by an adult woman in reference to adult men implies
the inferiority of the subjects of the phrase. There are other
specialized usages of these words. "Girlfriend" and
"boyfriend", when used by adults, are euphemisms for "lover".
"Girls" when used by a woman to describe her female friends
carries the meaning of comrades, as does the term "boys" used to
describe a man and his friends.
I trust this adds to the confusion. I never thought English had
class-specialized words. I wonder: does English have any other
such words?
Randolph Fritz