Monday 3 May 2010

Vocabulary: Men's World


Good articles take long time to write, and great ones take even longer because of the amount of researches one needs to do. I have a few more great topics on hand, but I will need to be rather free to get those done. For those of you who like my articles on Singapore, a big thank to you!

Image from Time.com

An article published on the New York Magazine on the 21st Mar 2010 titled "What If Women Ran Wall Street? Testosterone and Risk" has created a big impact and responses have been pouring into the internet. Well yeah, it is finance stuff, but it is worth reading it. It has very good insights on men's behaviour, which brings up my focus today.

In the past, people in the UK use words like chap/chappie/chappy, cove, guv, to call a man in general.

Now, they use mate, which could also mean friend.

In the US, words such guy, dude, feller/fella and Mac are more common, but if they are annoying you, you call him pal.

A man who looks ordinary is called a bloke.
A man who is old and unusual in some way is called geezer in the UK.
An old man is called a gaffer.
A stupid or silly old man is called a buffer.

A young man is called a lad or laddie (Scottish English).
MJ saw himself as Peter Pan as mentioned in an interview, well, that is not because he can fly around, but because it means a man who never seems to look older even he is no longer young.



As oppose to housewife, House husbanda man who stays at home and cleans the house, takes care of the children, etc. while his wife goes out to work. 


Is a house husband good or bad? Depends.


But definitely bad are men who hates women and think they are much better than women, thus we have misogynist, macho man and male chauvinist / pig. 


Image from Huffington Post

As for a word to describe men in the article "What If Women Ran Wall Street? Testosterone and Risk", suit seems to fit best, as it means a man who works in an office and wears a suit, especially a man with a high position in a company who is considered not to have human feelings and good ideas.


Resources:
http://nymag.com/news/businessfinance/64950/
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/kinds-of-men/definition-of-chap_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/kinds-of-men/definition-of-cove_2
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/kinds-of-men/definition-of-guv
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/mate_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/guy_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/kinds-of-men/definition-of-dude
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/kinds-of-men/definition-of-fella
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/mac_3
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/pal
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/kinds-of-men/definition-of-bloke
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/kinds-of-men/definition-of-geezer
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/kinds-of-men/definition-of-gaffer_3