of boys and girls
Jun. 4th, 2007 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juan_gandhihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl#Etymology: While there is no general agreement about the etymology of "girl", it is found in manuscripts dating from 1290 with the meaning "a child" (of either sex). A female child was called a "gay girl"; a male child was called a "knave girl".
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"The more insulting "girly-boy", which originated in 1589 as "girle-boy", is used to indicate a weak or "sissy" male."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy#Etymologythere is a theory that English "boy" derives from a theorized Anglo-Saxon word *boia = "boy or servant", thus explaining the English placenames Boyton and Boycott. If so, the word may have originated from the Boii, a Celtic tribe which formerly lived in Bohemia but was driven out by the Germanic Marcomanni tribe taking the area over in Roman times. In the dispersal, many Boii may have become slaves or servants, and their name became a word for "servant". (The same happened later to many Slav people, whence the word slave.)
...
"The more insulting "girly-boy", which originated in 1589 as "girle-boy", is used to indicate a weak or "sissy" male."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy#Etymologythere is a theory that English "boy" derives from a theorized Anglo-Saxon word *boia = "boy or servant", thus explaining the English placenames Boyton and Boycott. If so, the word may have originated from the Boii, a Celtic tribe which formerly lived in Bohemia but was driven out by the Germanic Marcomanni tribe taking the area over in Roman times. In the dispersal, many Boii may have become slaves or servants, and their name became a word for "servant". (The same happened later to many Slav people, whence the word slave.)
