Another kind of buddy

[Jonathan Lighter]

Re ordinary "buddy."  It's still widely used in Tennessee in the vocative by friendly blue-collar types, esp. those over forty.  But only if you're not really buddies. To address someone as "buddy" if you're already buddies would be unusual.

  And the more you did it, the more "unusual" it would be.

  JL

Darla Wells <dlw3208 at LOUISIANA.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Darla Wells
Subject: Re: Another kind of buddy
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Now that you mention it, the person who taught me the expression was in the
military at the same time I was in the late 70's. I had not heard it in basic
maybe because I was in the last all female platoon to graduate at Fort
McClellan and our drill sergeants were too busy whining because they couldn't
hit the recruits any more to teach us anything useful like that.

With magic, you can turn a frog into a prince. With science, you can turn a
frog into a Ph.D and you still have the frog you started with. (Terry Pratchett)

---------- Original Message -----------
From: "Landau, James"
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Sent: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:35:59 -0400
Subject: Re: Another kind of buddy

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Landau, James"
> Subject: Re: Another kind of buddy
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In Basic Training in 1969, at Fort Knox, Kentucky, I heard the following
> definition of "buddy system": "your buddy gets a pass, goes to town,
> gets two blow jobs, and gives you one." So it's earlier than the
> 80's and not restricted to California.
>
> When CB radio became the fad around 1974, a stereotyped usage (e.g. C.
> W. McCall's "Convoy" record) was to call someone (generally a male
> someone) "good buddy". By about 1980 a CB-er told me "good buddy"
> was not to be used because it now meant a gay boyfriend.
>
> As for "fuck buddy" being a gay male usage, that makes sense. The word
> "buddy" is usually (though not always) applied to a man's male
> friend or helper, e.g. the "buddy system" in swimming. (However,
> one can imagine a girl's swimming class using the buddy system.)
>
> Therefore for a woman to refer to a male lover as a "fuck buddy" is
> odd, since women do not generally refer to male friends as
> "buddies". Equally odd for a man (or for that matter a woman) to
> refer to a female lover as a "fuck buddy". Hence the presence of
> the word "buddy" implies a male-to-male relationship, with the f-
> word specifying it is a sexual relationship.
>
> OT: is anyone familiar with the term "best bud"?
>
> - Jim Landau
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Darla Wells [mailto:dlw3208 at LOUISIANA.EDU]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 11:43 AM
> Subject: Re: Another kind of buddy
>
> When I was a beginning truck driver, I was told not to be saying that
> someone was my buddy. When I asked why, I was told that the
> definition of buddy is "someone who will go get a blow job and bring
> you back one." I have no idea where he got that one, but I heard it
> a few times. This was in Southern California in the 80's. I wonder
> if that comes from a similar place as "fuck buddy." Darla
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
------- End of Original Message -------

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