"guy" used by teens?

[James C Stalker]

Re: dude.  Quite right, as anyone who follows this list knows.  Cohen, et al
have covered the dude topic quite thoroughly.  (I've even thrown in my
penny's worth.) I was trying to inject a bit of 20th C to provide contrast.
The young gentleman, a bounder mayhap, was indeed a dude (or some such, in
modern terms).  Either Austen had no similar appropriate term, or chose not
to use one.  Both are interesting possibilities.

Jim

Jonathan Lighter writes:

> My guess is that "guy" was indeed probably ambiguous into the 1890s.  George Ade's "Artie" (1896) uses it frequently as a synonym for "fellow."  Stephen Crane's "Maggie, A Girl of the Streets" (1892) doesn't. (The former is set in Chicago, the latter in NYC.)
>
> I've never seen it in a Civil War letter, BTW.
>
> And Jim - the word "dude" in Jane Austen ?   Not possible.
>
> JL
>
> "Patti J. Kurtz" <kurtpatt4 at NETSCAPE.NET> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Patti J. Kurtz"
> Subject: Re: "guy" used by teens?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> douglas at NB.NET wrote:
>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>This is of course not exactly the same "guy" = "chap"/"fellow" used today
>>(HDAS sense 2), but rather the ancestral "guy" = "grotesque person" or so
>>(HDAS sense 1) which I believe has been obsolete in the US for almost 100
>>years.
>>
>>
> Which raises the question for me of whether, if someone referred to
> another person as a "guy" in, say 1899, which meaning would the word
> have? HDAS lists the first meaning of "guy" with cites up into the 20th
> century and the 2nd meaning (fellow) as early as the 1870's.
>
> So does that mean both meanings were current during the 1890's? So if a
> character thought of someone else as a "guy," the meaning could be
> ambiguous?
>
> Maybe I'd better stick with "boys." Or am I making too much of this?
>
>
> Patti
>
>>-- Doug Wilson
>>
>>
>
> --
>
> Freeman - And what drives you on, fighting the monster?
>
>
>
> Straker - I don't know, something inside me I guess.
>
>
>
> Freeman - It's called dedication.
>
>
>
> Straker - Pig-headedness would be nearer.
>
>
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James C. Stalker
Department of English
Michigan State University