Scouts coming from various nations sing at the European Jamboree 2005

A Scout (in some countries a Boy Scout or Girl Scout) is a boy or a girl, usually 11 to 18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement. Because of the large age and development span, many Scouting associations have split this age group into a junior and a senior section. Scouts are organized into troops averaging twenty to thirty Scouts under guidance of one or more Scout Leaders. Troops subdivide into patrols of about six Scouts and engage in outdoor and special interest activities. Troops may affiliate with local, national, and international organizations. Some national Scouting associations have special interest programs such as Air Scouts, Sea Scouts, outdoor high adventure, Scouting bands, and rider scouts. Some troops, especially in Europe, have been co-educational since the 1970s, allowing boys and girls to work together as Scouts.

Foundation[link]

Robert Baden-Powell founded the Boy Scouts as an organization in 1908, a few months after the first scout encampment at Brownsea Island Scout camp in 1907.^[1] Baden-Powell got the idea from his experiences with the British Army in South Africa. To advance his ideas, Baden-Powell wrote Scouting for Boys for boy readership, which describes the Scout method of outdoor activities aiming at developing character, citizenship, and personal fitness qualities among youth.^[2] Many boys joined Scouting activities, resulting in the movement growing rapidly to become the world's largest youth organization.

The Scout program is designed to develop youths who have a high degree of self-reliance, initiative, courage, helpfulness, integrity, sportsmanship, and resourcefulness. Scouts should be helpful; understand their society, heritage, and culture; have respect for the rights of others; and be positive leader-citizens.^[3][4]

Over time, the Scout program has been reviewed and updated in many of the countries where it is run, and special interest programs developed such as Air Scouts, Sea Scouts, outdoor high adventure, Scouting bands, and rider scouts, but the same core values and principles as Baden-Powell originally envisaged still apply.

Age groups and sections[link]

Originally, the Scout program was aimed at 11- to 16-year-old boys. However, the younger brothers of Scouts started to attend Troop meetings, and so the Wolf Cub section was started. It was also evident that young girls wanted to participate in similar activities, but the Edwardian values at the time would not allow young boys and girls to "rough and tumble" together, causing the Guide Movement to be created.

While most Scouts may join a troop after finishing Cub Scouts, this is not required. As Scouts get older, they often seek more challenging and diverse activities. He may later join another affiliated program for older children, such as Exploring, Venturing, or Rovering.

Activities[link]

Scouts at a campfire ring at summer camp

A Scout learns the cornerstones of the Scout method, Scout Promise, and Scout Law. These are designed to instill character, citizenship, personal fitness, and leadership in boys through a structured program of outdoor activities.^[5][6] Common ways to implement the Scout method include spending time together in small groups with shared experiences, rituals, and activities, as well as emphasizing good citizenship and decision-making that are age-level appropriate. Cultivating a love and appreciation of the outdoors and outdoor activities are key elements. Primary activities include camping, woodcraft, first aid, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports.

Scouts are known throughout the world for performing acts of public good and sometimes acts of heroism. For example, a Scout foiled a 2008 assassination attempt on Maldives' President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom by "grabbing an attacker's knife as the man leapt from a crowd and lunged at the leader."^[7] The scout, Ibrahim Jaisham, a male member of the co-educational The Scout Association of Maldives, sustained minor injuries during the intervention.^[8][9]

Fellowship[link]

Camping most often occurs on a unit level, such as in the troop, but there are periodic camporees and jamborees. Camporees are events where units from a local area camp together for a weekend. These occur a couple times a year and usually have a theme, such as pioneering. Jamborees are large events on a national or international level held every four years where thousands of Scouts camp together for one to two weeks. Activities at these events include games, scoutcraft competitions, patch trading, aquatics, woodcarving, archery, and rifle and shotgun shooting.

For many Scouts and Scouters, the highlight of the year is spending at least a week in the summer as part of an outdoor activity. This can be a long event such as camping, hiking, sailing, canoeing, or kayaking with the unit or a summer camp operated on a council, state, or provincial level. Scouts attending a summer camp, generally one week during the summer, work on merit badges, advancement, and perfecting scoutcraft skills. Some summer camps operate specialty programs, such as sailing, backpacking, canoeing and whitewater, caving, and fishing.

Personal progression[link]

A large part, compared to younger and older sections, of the activities are related to personal progression. All Scouting organizations have an advancement program, whereby the Scout learns scoutcraft, community service, leadership, and explores areas of interest to him. This Badge system or Personal Progressive Scheme is based on two complementary elements:

• Proficiency (Merit) badges, which are intended to encourage the Scout to learn a subject which could be his work or hobby, so cover many different types of activities, not always related to Scouting.
• Class badges or Progress system, which symbolize increasingly difficult levels or successive stages.

Most Scouting associations have a highest badge that require mastering scoutcraft, leadership, and performing community service. Only a small percentage of Scouts attain them.

Unit affiliation[link]

Troop[link]

A group of Australian Scouts hike along a fire trail in a national park.

The troop is the fundamental unit of the Scouts. This is the group a Scout joins and via which he participates in Scouting activities, such as camping, backpacking, and canoeing. The troop leadership, youth and adult, organizes and provides support for these activities. It may include as few as a half-dozen Scouts, or as many as seventy or more. Troops usually meet weekly.

Patrol[link]

Each troop is divided into patrols of six to ten Scouts and use the patrol method, where the Scouts divide into smaller groups within the troop. A patrol's independence from the troop varies among troops and between activities. For instance, a troop typically holds ordinary meetings as a unit. Patrols' autonomy becomes more visible at campouts, where each patrol may set up its own cooking area. However, on a high adventure trip which only a small part of the troop attends, divisions between patrols may disappear entirely. Patrols may hold meetings and even excursions separately from the rest of the troop, but this is more common in some troops than in others.^[10] Each patrol has a Patrol Leader (PL) and Assistant Patrol Leader (APL). Some troops mix older and younger Scouts in the same patrols, so that the older Scouts can teach the younger ones more effectively, other troops group Scouts by age, so that the members of one patrol have more in common.

Group[link]

In most countries a local organisation, a "Scout Group", combines different sections together into a single body. Scout Groups can consist of any number of sections of the different Age Groups in Scouting and Guiding. Scout Groups can be single sex or have boys and girls in separate and/or co-ed sections depending on the group and the national organization. In some countries, the different sections are independent of each other, although they might be sponsored or chartered by the same organisation, such as a church.

Uniforms[link]

The Scout uniform is a specific characteristic of Scouting. The original uniform, which has created a familiar image in the public eye and had a very military appearance, consisted of a khaki button-up shirt, shorts, and a broad-brimmed campaign hat.

Uniforms have become much more functional and colorful since the beginning and are now frequently blue, orange, red, or green, and shorts are replaced by long trousers in areas where the culture calls for modesty, and in winter weather. T-shirts and other more casual wear have also replaced the more formal button-up uniforms in many Scouting regions.

To show the unity of all Scouts, the World Membership Badge (World Crest) or another badge with a fleur-de-lis is a part of all uniforms. Neckerchiefs and Woggles (slides) are still quite common, but some Scouting associations do not use them. Patches for leadership positions, ranks, special achievements, patrol- animals, colors or names, troop- or group- numbers or names, and country or regional affiliation are standard.

See also[link]

Scouting portal

References[link]

v t e Scouting and Guiding topics   The Scouting Movement Scouting Scouting for Boys Scout method Scout Law Scout Promise Scout Motto Wood Badge Girl Guides Ranger Guides Jamboree Scout Leader Non-aligned organisations Scouting controversy and conflict Scouting in popular culture List of Scouts List of highest awards in Scouting   Sections Age groups in Scouting and Guiding Beavers Cub Scout Scout Venture Scout Rover Scout Rainbow Guides Brownie Guides Girl Guides Ranger Guides Air Scouts Extension Scouting Lone Scouts Lone Guides Sea Scout   Founders, pioneers, and notable leaders Robert Baden-Powell Olave Baden-Powell Agnes Baden-Powell Daniel Carter Beard Frederick Russell Burnham William Hillcourt László Nagy Ernest Thompson Seton J. S. Wilson   Prominent places Baden-Powell House Brownsea Island Edith Macy Conference Center Foxlease Gilwell Park Kandersteg Our Cabaña Our Chalet Pax Hill Pax Lodge Philmont Sangam   International Scouting Confédération Européenne de Scoutisme International Scout and Guide Fellowship Order of World Scouts Scouts-in-Exile International Union of Guides and Scouts of Europe World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts World Federation of Independent Scouts World Organization of the Scout Movement   Other Ging Gang Goolie International Scouting Collectors Association Oldest Scout Groups Outdoor education Religion in Scouting Scout handshake Scout Spirit World Scout Emblem World Scout Moot

Boy in Indonesia

Boy in Spain

Elder boys in Ethiopia

Boys in Germany,
performing a puppet play

A boy is a young male human, usually child or adolescent. When he becomes an adult he's described as a man. The most apparent thing that differentiates a boy from a girl is that a boy typically has a penis while girls do not. However some intersex children with ambiguous genitals, and biologically female transgender children, may also be classified or self-identify as a "boy".

The term "boy" is primarily used to indicate biological sex distinctions, cultural gender role distinctions or both. The latter most commonly applies to adult men, either considered in some way immature or inferior, in a position associated with aspects of boyhood, or even without such boyish connotation as age-indiscriminate synonym. The term can be joined with a variety of other words to form these gender-related labels as compound words.

Etymology[link]

The word "boy" comes from Middle English boi, boye ("boy, servant"), related to other Germanic words for boy, namely East Frisian boi ("boy, young man") and West Frisian boai ("boy"). Though the exact etymology is obscure, the English and Frisian forms probably derive from an earlier Anglo-Frisian *bō-ja ("little brother"), a diminutive of the Germanic root *bō- ("brother, male relation"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhā-, *bhāt- ("father, brother"). The root is also found in Flemish boe ("brother"), Norwegian dialectal boa ("brother"), and, through a reduplicated variant *bō-bō-, in Old Norse bófi, Dutch boef "(criminal) knave, rogue", German Bube ("knave, rogue, boy"). Furthermore, the word may be related to Bōia, an Anglo-Saxon personal name.

Overview[link]

Ongoing debates about the influences of nature versus nurture in shaping the behavior of girls and boys raises questions about whether the roles played by boys are mainly the result of inborn differences or of socialization. Images of boys in art, literature and popular culture often demonstrate assumptions about gender roles.

An adult male human is a man, but when age is not a crucial factor, both terms can be interchangeable, e.g., 'boys and their toys' applies equally to adults and young boys, just as 'Are you mice or men?' can also apply to young boys.

Japanese boys wearing fundoshi at a festival.

The age boundary is not clear cut, rather dependent on the context or even on individual circumstances. A young man who has not assumed (or has been denied) the traditional roles of a man might also be called a boy. It may feel uncomfortable to a young male upon being referred to as a "man" before he believes he has assumed these roles, such as having a career, a partner, a household of his own, fatherhood, etc., though the addition of a jocular modifier such as "young man" or "little man" might lessen the dissonance. Conversely, it may feel uncomfortable to a male to be called a "boy" if he believes he has assumed the traditional roles of a "man". In mother's/mama's boy, the word emphatically implies a male (minor or adult in years) who is too immature to be independent.

In some traditions boyhood is held to be exchanged for adult manhood, or at least approach it significantly, by certain -in se independent- acts assuming a role deemed to be typical for a "normal" man (though there are limits) as marriage, fathering offspring or military service. Various cultural and/or religious rites of passage serve, partially or specifically, to mark the transition to manhood.

Boy siiting in the stair of School in Kasaragod, Kerala, India

There is often a number of traditional differences in attire between boys and adult men, which may even give rise to a metaphoric term such as broekvent in Dutch (i.e., a boy who has not yet "graduated" from shorts to trousers) and in what is socially accepted as appropriate behaviour, e.g., boys may be publicly seen naked in cultures where men are not.

In English, the words youth, teenager and adolescent may refer to either male or female. No gender-specific term exists for an intermediate stage between a boy and a man, except "young man", although the term puberty, for one who reached sexual reproductivity (or the legally assumed age, e.g. 14 for boys, often set lower for girls) without being a legal adult yet, stems from a Latin word for boys only, itself named after the accompanying male body hair, pubes, on face and genital region.

Many occasions occur when an adult male is commonly referred to as a boy. A person's boyfriend or loverboy may be of any age; this even applies to a 'working' call-boy, toyboy (though usually younger than the client as youth is generally considered attractive). Reflecting the general aesthetic preference for youth, one says pretty boy (e.g. in the nickname of Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd, who committed his first bank robbery at age 30) or Adonis (name of a mythological youth) even when a male beauty is clearly of riper age. In terms (used pejoratively or neutrally) for homosexuals such as batty boy (alongside "batty man"; from "bottom") or "bum boy", age is not essential, but the connotation of immaturity can strengthen insulting use.

Boy Scouts at summer camp in the United States.

A man's group of male friends etc. engaged in Male bonding are often called "the boys". It is most common to refer to men, irrespective of age or even in an adult age group, as boys in the context of a team (especially all-male), such as old boys for networking of adult men who attended the same school(s) as boys, or as professional colleagues, e.g. "the boys at the office, - police station etc." (often all adults). The members of a student fraternity can be called frat(ernity) boys, technically preferable to the pleonasm frat-bro(ther), and remain so for life as adults, after graduation.

In sports 'the boys' commonly refers to the teammates; e.g., UK football managers quite often refer to their players as "The boy so-and-so" and this usage is by no means restricted to the youngest players, though it is rarely applied to the most senior.

In US urban, particularly African American and Latino slang the term boy is used with a possessive as meaning friend (my boy, his boys), presumably as a reduction of homeboy, originally a male from the same area.

In some cases, the word boy is used merely to designate the age of the (male) person, irrespective of the function, as in altar boy, a minor acting as liturgical acolyte, or in Boy Scouts, an organisation specifically for boys. Thus the compound -man can then be replaced by -boy, as in footboy; or boy is simply added, either as a prefix (e.g., in boy-racer) or as a suffix (e.g., in Teddy Boy).

An adult equivalent (with or without -man) is not to be expected when -boy designates an apprentice (for which some languages use a compound with the equivalent of boy, e.g. leerjongen 'learning boy' in Dutch) or lowest rank implying specific on the job training if promotion is to be obtained, as in kitchen-boy. Similarly schoolboy only applies to minors; the modern near-synonym pupil originally designated a minor in Roman law as being under a specific adult's authority, as in loco parentis.

Expressions such as "boys will be boys" (i.e., a male always retains a tendency for boyish games or mischief) allude to stereotypically ascribed characteristics of boys and men; in the term tomboy, a woman's (according to the counterpart-gender stereotype) uncharacteristically bold nature is even described solely by comparing her to a boy.

The use of boy (like kid) in (fantasy or descriptive) nicknames, also for adult men (e.g. Shark Boy for a wrestler with matching costume), may also connote to the informal or naughty image of boyhood.

In such terms as 'city boy' or 'home boy', the age notion is at most anachronistic, as they indicate any male who grew up (or by extension lived a long time) in a certain environment.

Specific uses and compounds[link]

The following subsections treat some specific contexts where the term boy is frequently used, as such or in compound terms, often 'emancipated' from the age notion as such.

• Master was replaced (not for a slave owner or his overseer etc.) by the late 19th century, as a form of address, especially employed by servants, by Mister (etymologically equal) for the master of the household and other adults, but retained for boys until age 13.

Military[link]

The term 'our boys' is commonly used for a nation's soldiers, often with sympathy. Given the physical demands of battle, recruits are preferably in their physical prime, but adult professionals remain included in the term as long as they remain in service. A case where the term is formally used for (adult) men is sideboy, a member of an even-numbered group of seamen posted in two rows at the Quarterdeck when a visiting dignitary boards or leaves a ship. In the Ottoman empire, the young, mainly Christian military recruits for life (often forcibly enlisted by 'devshirme') were officially called acemi oglanlar ("novice boys").

Thus "-boy" can enter the nickname for a particular nation's soldiers, e.g. the US (infantry) doughboy, or a specific force, e.g. Fly-boy is slang for an airman.

Furthermore, specific terms refer to minors used in the armed forces:

• Drummer boy
• Ship's boy is a minor in naval training; boy seaman refers to specific, low-paid apprentice ranks, notably in the Royal Navy; until the middle of the twentieth century, they were the only Navy staff subject (like their civilian age-peers, at home and in school) to physical punishment, usually spanking, traditionally administered on the bare bottom (as in English public schools; the adults were lashed on the backside above the waist), either formally (ordered in court martial, publicly executed on deck) or, more often but less severely, summary; the same was true of a midshipman, also a minor, but indicated with "-man" rather than "-boy", possibly reflecting their higher status as future naval officers. Sometimes in ex-servicemen's parades, an old man is described as "ship's boy" to say that he served so classed in the Navy as a boy.

However, when a minor in military employ is considered (historically often far less restrictive then nowadays) too young to be a 'normal' warrior (illegal under present UN rules, but without precise enforceable age limits), he's called boy soldier, regardless whether he's used as an armed fighter or only in logistic or similar functions such as bearer.

Domestic, residential and similar 'personal' attendants[link]

• Bellboy was originally a ship's bell-ringer, later a hotel page.
• Busboy is a rank in restaurants etc. below (head) waiter, fitting for trainees but may be held by ripe adults, even under younger (e.g. better qualified) superiors
• Cabana boy
• Cabin boy
• Hall boy
• Hamam oğlanı "bath boy" (also called Tellak) working in a Turkish bath.
• Houseboy, or often "boy" for short, became a common term for domestic staff, notably non-European natives in the Asian and African colonies, adopted as such in other languages, e.g. in Dutch and French (also in the Belgian colonies).
• Kitchen boy, belows the cook(s); in a large household there may be specific functions, such as spitboy
• Linkboy like linkman meant torch- or other light-bearer
• Page, from the Greek παις pais, again in many languages, already in Hellenistic times παίδες βασιλικοί paides basilikoi 'royal (i.e. court) boys'.

Cultural and religious life[link]

• Altar boy (see above)
• Choir boy designates a boy (always a minor) singer in a choir; here applies a specific physiological, artistically relevant criterion: they remain a musical category of their own (boy soprano, also known as a treble) until their voice 'breaks', during puberty, to join one of the adult male voice registers (countertenor (closest to treble), alto, tenor, baritone, or bass); only the castrato may (not guaranteed) remain a soprano as an adult man; historically the term was designed for all-male (mainly church) choirs, with men with already broken voices (often former choir boys), in modern times it also applies to mixed choirs.

Rural life and professions[link]

• Cowboy originally designated a herdsboy employed as cowherd, but lost the age notion, first retaining the connotation of inferior status, later applying to the whole ranch life culture; by contrast "shepherd's boy" (rather herding sheep or goats, representing less capital) remained restricted to minors.

Commercial and other services[link]

Often the term "boy" describes positions of the trainee type, such as stable boy (a junior stable hand).

• Best boy in a film crew denotes the chief assistant, usually of the gaffer or key grip, next in line to be promoted; an example of a use where the term is traditionally unaltered in crediting female incumbents
• Breaker boys were boys between 8 and 12 years old who worked as coal breakers in U.S. coal mines. The job resulted in a high number of fatal and debilitating injuries and the practice of employing children as coal breakers largely ended by 1920 due to the efforts of the National Child Labor Committee.
• Office boy and copy boy refer to a young(est) employee (i.e. lacking experience), in training and/or performing menial services such as carrying typewritten texts between offices of a newspaper.
• Even into the early 20th century, the British empire systematically employed boy clerks, including a specific rank of boy copyist, recruited by examination (despite the name, requiring schooling) and reserved for candidates aged 15–18, not retained in that rank after the age of 20.

Certain jobs need so little training or formal qualifications that they can easily be performed as student jobs, and thus tend to be filled mostly or exclusively by minors, as it would not pay to employ an adult at or above minimum wage. Thus an equivalent word with the compound man (or similar) may be the rarer one, or even inexistent. Examples include delivery boy, errand boy, messenger boy and various specific terms naming the product to deliver, such as paperboy (closest adult counterpart postman), pizza boy (alongside pizzaman), or to serve, such as a potboy (drinks waiter). In other cases the compound mentions a crucial attribute of his task, e.g. ball boy (more recently also girls) in tennis.

In some cases his small, light body makes a boy a better choice, e.g. as jockey where no weight handicap is in force.

• A nipper originally was a boy send out by an adult (often his own father) as pickpocket, later a boy assistant to various professions such as a carter, still later (recorded since 1859) a boys' age term roughly equal to toddler

Race[link]

Historically, in countries such as the U.S. and South Africa, "boy" was not only a 'neutral' term for domestics but also used as a disparaging racist insult towards men of colour (especially of African descent), recalling their subservient status even after the 20th century legal emancipation (from slavery, evolved to race segregation, viz. Apartheid) and alleged infantility, and many still consider it offensive in that context to this day since it denotes that men of colour (especially of African descent) are less than men.

The use of the term "boy" has not always been used as an insult. As an example, Thomas Branch, an early African-American Seventh-day Adventist missionary to Nyassaland (Malawi) referred to the native students as boys:

There is one way by which we judge many of our present boys to be quite different from some of those who were here long ago: those that are married have their wives here with them, and build their own houses, and all are busy making their gardens. I have told all the boys that if they wished to stay here and learn, those that had wives must bring them. This is having a good effect on them. They stay longer, and are more attentive to their work and their studies.^[1]

Non-function specific analogous terms[link]

Boys, in the strict or a wider sense, are often informally referred to by analogous or metaphorical terms. The literal connotations, which may be ironic or downright pejorative, have often been eroded by common use. Some terms are unisex, with or without (at least historical) preponderance of use for boys:

• Cub, pup(py) and whelp compare boys to the young of predatory animals, the slang tadpole even to that of an amphibian;
• Buck, another animal young, usually refers to a sexually adventurous male youngster
• Loon, originally an (idle) lout, has got -mainly in Scotland- unrelated specific meanings, including boy, simpleton and looney person
• Sprout compares to a plant's young shoots
• References to the boy's generally lighter physique than a man include stripling 'slender youth' and -rather insulting- slang like half-pint or small-fry
• More specifically, shaveling (or in slang shaver) refers to boys' lesser hair growth than men's before - and densification around puberty
• Various terms refer to children's, often especially boys', lack of adult manners (e.g. "snot(ty) nose(d) (kid)") or to often mischievous behavior, e.g. "rascal", also by analogy with animals, e.g. "monkey", "urchin" (as 'prickly' as a hedgehog); "(spoiled) brat" refers to such undiscipline for lack of firm upbringing.
• Furthermore, common boys' names have also been used metonymically to stand for boys and/or men in general, as in 'every Dick and Tom'.

Analogous uses and popular etymology[link]

By analogy "boy" can also refer as an anthropomorphic term to a young male (or any male) of another animal, either in general or species-specific; in the last case it may even have a specific term, notably derived from a boy's name, such as "billy goat" for a 'boy' goat, or tomcat (known since 1809, for any male cat; but just Tom, applied to male kittens, is recorded since c.1303)

Again by analogy "boy" can occasionally even refer to a 'male' object.

Some words contain 'boy' in English by mistake (folk etymology), actually referring to a (near) homophone such as French bois = "wood" (e.g. in "low boy", a type of furniture, and in "tallboy", both furniture and a high glass or goblet).

Similar originally youth-related terms[link]

Boys in art[link]

Many mythological boys have frequently been represented in various arts, e.g. Venus' often mischievous son Cupid, himself a young god of love which he 'inflicts' on humans by shooting his arrows; in some style periods even multiplied as naked little boys called putti.

In religious art, generally adults preponderate (except as extras), with certain marked, stereotypical exceptions such as the infant Jesus or angels which may even act as 'Christianized' putti.

In children's books of English folklore, elves are often portrayed as mischievous little boys who are very small with leaf-shaped ears and blond hair.

In portrait art, and generally in commissioned work (including funeral art), the subjects are usually determined by the wishes of the (adult) client, so minors are often in the minority, yet in wealthy families especially heirs are (re)presented as part of their social positioning in view of future marriage and succession, generally either as mini-adults or stereotypical youth, e.g. at play or in cozy home scenes.

Some artists displayed a clear predeliction for scenes with boys, in certain cases (especially if frequently depicting revealing poses) believed to have to do with a homo-erotic taste, as is believed of the highly respected Old Master Caravaggio, or Henry Scott Tuke who kept producing such works even though the market circa 1900 was rather unappreciative.

In music, boys' voices, before they 'break' being of a soprano register (specifically known as treble) unlike adult men (in a choir usually tenor and bass), have been most sought-after, especially where female voices were considered inappropriate as often in church and certain theatrical music - this even led to the practice of physically trying to prevent their 'angelical' voices ever to break by surgically cutting short the hormonal drive to manhood: for centuries, castrato singers, who coupled adult strength and experience with a treble register, starred in contratenor parts, mainly in operatic styles.

Gallery[link]

• 

  Roman-Egyptian funeral portrait of a young boy

• 

  Sir Walter Raleigh and his son, 1602

• 

  Die Söhne des Künstlers Christian Leberecht Vogel

• 

  Die Geschwister an der Ostsee, by Ernst Weise, 1915

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Boys

• Boy band
• Boy bishop
• Boi (gender)
• Boy Scouts
• Pederasty

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2009)

• Etymology Online - entry for "boy"
• H. H. Malincrodt, Latijn-Nederlands woordenboek (Latin-Dutch dictionary)
• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary
• Buck, Carl Darling (1949). A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-07937-6 (1988 reprint). 

External links[link]

Look up boy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Boyhood Studies, website and journal for the study of boys
• Boyhood Studies Forum, discusses news items, new research
• Historical Boys' Clothing

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Look up scout or scouting in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article scout.

A scout is a soldier performing reconnaissance and other support duties.

Scout may also refer to:

Aircraft[link]

• Scout (aircraft), pre-1920s (British) terminology for a single-seat fighter
• Scout plane, post-1920s/modern usage for reconnaissance or surveillance aircraft.
• Aeryon Scout, a micro UAV
• AD Scout British naval aircraft
• Aeronca K Scout
• American Champion Scout
• IAI Scout, an unmanned air vehicle used by the Israel Defense Forces during the 1982 Lebanon War.
• Tennessee Propellers Scout, an American powered parachute design
• Westland Scout British helicopter

Automotive and rail[link]

• International Harvester Scout
• Scout (train)

Professions[link]

• a domestic assistant at Oxford University: see bedder
• Reconnaissance
• Scout (sport), a professional sports talent-scout
• Scout.com, a sports-publishing company

Land military[link]

• Scout rifle
• Steyr Scout, rifle

Space applications[link]

• Scout (rocket family)
• Mars Scout Program

Ships[link]

• HMS Scout, the name of various British Royal Navy ships
• USS Scout, the name of various United States Navy ships

Youth movement[link]

• A Scout is a member of a Scouting organization. There are thousands of national Scouting organizations or federations; these are grouped into six international Scouting associations with some non-aligned organizations:
  • Confédération Européenne de Scoutisme
  • Order of World Scouts
  • Union Internationale des Guides et Scouts d′Europe
  • World Federation of Independent Scouts
  • World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts
    • List of World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts members
  • World Organization of the Scout Movement
    • List of World Organization of the Scout Movement members
  • List of non-aligned Scouting organizations

Military units[link]

• Scout Sniper
• Cavalry Scout
• Grey's Scouts
• Lovat Scouts
• Philippine Scouts
• Selous Scouts
• South Pacific Scouts
• Traditional Apache scout
• United States Army Indian Scouts

Other[link]

• Scout (comics)
• Scout (operating system)
• Scout Taylor-Compton
• The Scout (film), a 1994 film
• SCOUT, a band that performed their song "State of Main" and bespoke music (in the role of The Miami Relatives) on The Sopranos episodes filmed at The Crazy Horse, e.g., "The Telltale Moozadell"
• "Scout", the nickname of Jean Louise Finch, the main character in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird
• Scout, a subsidiary of Ribble Motor Services. In later years (mid 1970's onwards), the computing services bureau of the company.
• Scout, a slang term at the University of Oxford for a college servant or waiter
• Scout Toys, an education toy line of LeapFrog Enterprises
• The Scout, a book by Steven Plaut
• The Scout, a speedy, baseball loving class in the team-based game Team Fortress 2
• Toy Scouts, an all-female regiment in the Army of Toy Soldiers, the fan club of musician and Internet personality Doctor Steel

See also[link]

• Guide (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Penn & Teller (Penn Jillette and Teller) are American illusionists and entertainers who have performed together since the late 1970s, and are known for their numerous stage and television shows. Their current Las Vegas show is an amalgam of illusion and comedy. Penn Jillette is a raconteur; Teller generally does not speak while performing, although his voice can occasionally be heard during their performance. They specialize in gory tricks, exposing frauds, and performing clever pranks. More recently they have become associated with atheism, scientific skepticism, and libertarianism, particularly through their television show Penn & Teller: Bullshit!.

Career[link]

Penn Jillette and Teller were introduced to one another by Weir Chrisimer, and they performed their first show together at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival on 19 August 1975.^[1] From the late 1970s through 1981, Penn, Teller, and Chrisimer performed as a trio called "The Asparagus Valley Cultural Society" which played in San Francisco at the Phoenix Theater. This act was sillier and less "edgy" than today's Penn & Teller act.^{[citation needed]} Chrisimer helped to develop some bits that continued, most notably Teller's "Shadows" trick, which involves a single red rose.

By 1985, Penn & Teller were receiving rave reviews for their Off Broadway show and Emmy award-winning PBS special, Penn & Teller Go Public.^[2] In 1987, they began the first of two successful Broadway runs. Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, the duo made numerous television appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and Saturday Night Live, as well as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Today, and many others.

Penn & Teller had national tours throughout the 1990s, gaining critical praise. They have also made television guest appearances on Babylon 5^[3] (as the comedy team Rebo and Zooty), The Drew Carey Show, a few episodes of Hollywood Squares from 1998 until 2004, ABC's Muppets Tonight, FOX's The Bernie Mac Show, an episode of the game show Fear Factor on NBC, NBC's The West Wing, in a two-part episode of the final season of ABC's Home Improvement in 1998, four episodes during season 1 of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch in 1996, NBC's Las Vegas, and Fox's The Simpsons episodes "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder" and "The Great Simpsina" and the Futurama film Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder in 2009. They also appeared as three-card Monte scam artists in the music video for "It's Tricky" by Run-DMC in 1987, and were thrown out of a Las Vegas hotel room in the music video for "Waking Up in Vegas" by Katy Perry in 2009.

Their Showtime network television show Bullshit! took a skeptical look at psychics, religion, the pseudoscientific, conspiracy theories, and the paranormal. It has featured critical segments on gun control, astrology, Feng Shui, environmental issues, PETA, weight loss, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the war on drugs.

On Bullshit!, the duo described their social and political views as libertarian.

They have also described themselves as teetotalers. Their book, Penn & Teller's How to Play in Traffic, explains that they avoid absolutely all alcohol and other drugs, including caffeine, though they do appear to smoke cigarettes in some videos. Penn has said that he has never even tasted alcohol, and that his tolerance for certain drugs is so low that his doctor only had to administer a minute amount of anesthetic relative to what one would expect necessary for a man of his size to undergo surgery.

The pair have written several books about magic, including Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks For Dear Friends, Penn & Teller's How to Play with Your Food, and Penn & Teller's How to Play in Traffic. Since 2001, Penn & Teller have performed six nights a week (or as Penn put it on Bullshit!: "Every night of the week ... except Fridays!") in Las Vegas at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino.

Penn Jillette hosted a weekday one-hour talk show on Infinity Broadcasting's Free FM radio network from January 3, 2006 to March 2, 2007 with cohost Michael Goudeau.^[4][5] He also hosted the game show Identity, which debuted on December 18, 2006 on NBC.

Their new television series Penn & Teller Tell a Lie premiered on the Discovery Channel on October 5, 2011.

Penn & Teller have also shown support for the Brights movement^[6] and are now listed on the movement's homepage under the Enthusiastic Brights section.^[7] According to an article in Wired magazine, their license plates are customized so they read, "Atheist" and "Godless", and when Penn signs autographs, he often writes "there is no God" with his signature.^[8]

Off-stage relationship[link]

Penn Jillette has told interviewer Larry King that a big part of the duo's success and longevity is due to them never having been close friends. They enjoy working together immensely, but have little in common besides magic. As a result of their drastically different lifestyles and interests, they rarely socialize or interact when not working. Jillette believes that their partnership succeeds precisely because they give each other a great deal of space off-stage.

Tricks[link]

Their tricks include Teller hanging upside-down over a cushion of spikes in a straitjacket, Teller submerged in a huge container of water, Teller being run over by an 18-wheel tractor-trailer, Teller swinging going through Penn's hands. Many of their effects rely heavily on shock appeal and violence, although presented in a humorous manner.

Sometimes, the pair will claim to reveal a secret of how a magic trick is done, but those tricks are usually invented by the duo for the sole purpose of exposing them, and therefore designed with more spectacular and weird methods than would have been necessary had it just been a "proper" magic trick. For example, in the "reveal" of one trick, while Teller waits for his cue, he reads magazines and eats a snack.^{[clarification needed]} Another example is their rendition of the cups and balls, using transparent cups.

Penn and Teller perform their own adaptation of the famous bullet catch illusion. Each simultaneously fires a gun at the other through small panes of glass and then "catches" the other's bullet in his mouth. They also have an assortment of card tricks in their repertoire, virtually all of them involving the force of the Three of Clubs on an unsuspecting audience member as this card is easy for viewers to identify on television cameras.^[9]

The duo will sometimes perform tricks that discuss the intellectual underpinnings of magic. One of their acts, titled "Magician vs. Juggler", features Teller performing card tricks while Penn juggles and delivers a monologue on the difference between the two: jugglers start as socially aware children who go outside and learn juggling with other children; magicians are misfits who stay in the house and teach themselves magic tricks out of spite.

In one of their most politically charged tricks, they make a U.S. flag seem to disappear by wrapping it in a copy of the United States Bill of Rights, and apparently setting the flag on fire, so that "the flag is gone but the Bill of Rights remains." The act may also feature the "Chinese bill of rights", presented as a transparent piece of acetate. They normally end the routine by restoring the unscathed flag to its starting place on the flagpole; however, on a TV guest appearance on The West Wing this final part was omitted.^[10]

One of their more recent tricks^[when?] involves a powered nail gun with a quantity of missing nails from the series of nails in its magazine. Penn begins by firing several apparently real nails into a board in front of him. He then proceeds to fire the nailgun into the palm of his hand several times, while suffering no injuries. His pattern builds as he oscillates between firing blanks into his hand and firing nails into the board. While performing he states that the trick is merely memorization, and explains that the fact that he does not flinch when he could be firing a nail into his hand should be a sign that the trick is not actually dangerous. A later revision to the trick replaced the false claims of memorization with a more open explanation, allowing the audience to enjoy the rhythm of the nail gun without fear of a serious mishap.^[11]

A trick introduced in 2010 is a modern version of the bag escape, replacing the traditional sack with a black trash bag apparently filled with helium. Teller is placed in the bag which is then pumped full of helium and sealed by an audience member. For the escape, the audience are blinded by a bright light for a second and when they are able to see again, Teller has escaped from the bag and Penn is holding it, still full of helium, above his head, before releasing it to float to the ceiling. The duo had hoped to put the trick in their mini-tour in London; however, it was first shown to the public in their Las Vegas show on 18 August 2010. In June 2011, Penn and Teller performed this trick for the first time in the United Kingdom on their ITV show Fool Us.^[12]

Filmography[link]

Television[link]

Books[link]

• Penn & Teller's How to Play in Traffic (1997, ISBN 1-57297-293-9)
• Penn & Teller's How to Play with Your Food (1992, ISBN 0-679-74311-1)
• Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends (1989, ISBN 0-394-75351-8)
• Sock 2004, ISBN 0-312-32805-2 (Penn Jillette sole author)
• How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker: The Wisdom of Dickie Richard 2006, ISBN 0-312-34905-X (Penn Jillette and Mickey D. Lynn)
• When I'm Dead All This Will Be Yours: Joe Teller—A Portrait By His Kid 2000, ISBN 0-922233-22-5 (Teller sole author)

Other Media[link]

Music[link]

• "The Horse You Rode In On" by Pigface (Penn Jillette only)
• "Spookshow" by Adil Omar (Penn Jillette only)
• "Penn & Teller Present: Music to Look at Boxes By" (With Mike "Jonesy" Jones)
• "Never Mind the Sex Pistols" by Bongos, Bass, & Bob (Penn Jillette with Dean J Seal and Bob "Running" Elk)
• "Tattoo of Blood" by the Captain Howdy (Penn Jillette with Mark Kramer)
• "Money Feeds My Music Machine" by the Captain Howdy (Penn Jillette with Mark Kramer)
• "It's Tricky" by Run–D.M.C. (Penn & Teller shown throughout the video and at the end appear to take over the persona of Run–D.M.C.)
• "Waking up in Vegas" by Katy Perry (Penn & Teller are kicked out of their hotel room by Perry and her boyfriend. They later kick Perry out again.)

Jillette also toured with the Residents during the Mole Show, and hosted Ralph Records' 10th Anniversary Radio Special (1982). There is some mild controversy and confusion surrounding this. While the premise of 10th Anniversary Radio Special revolved around Jillette having never heard of the label or any of the bands on it (the Residents included), he was credited as a collaborator on the 1981 album Mark of the Mole,^[16] and he can be heard giving news bulletins in the first track. This has led some to speculate that Jillette may have been a Resident at one point.

Theater[link]

In 2008 Teller co-directed a production of Macbeth in Red Bank, New Jersey and Washington, DC.^[17]

Video games[link]

• Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors 1995 – Absolute Entertainment for Sega CD & 3DO, Unreleased.
• Sabrina, the Teenage Witch: Spellbound 1998 – Simon & Schuster for PC – Voices for Drell & Skippy
• Desert Bus 2011 – Amateur Pixels.

The 1995 video game Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors featured an unusual mini-game called Desert Bus in which the player drove a realistic bus route between Tucson and Las Vegas. This mini-game became popular due to the fact that it imitated a real 8 hour bus ride. Once reaching the destination, the player gets 1 point and, if desired, can then drive the return route. The game was long and boring, but found a cult audience due to the dark humor and weirdness behind the idea.

The game has since been used in an annual charity called "Desert Bus for Hope" run by website desertbus.org. The site invites celebrities play the game streamed live online, with all proceeds being donated to Child's Play (charity). on November 14, 2011 an iOS port of Desert Bus was created and released in the Apple Inc iTunes store. The game was developed in conjunction with the Desert Bus for hope event and all profits from the game are donated to charity.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Penn & Teller

• Official website
• Penn's "Hydro-therapeutic stimulator" (aka Jill-jet) patent
• A man, a ball, a hoop, a bench (and an alleged thread)… TELLER!

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (June 2011)

David Charles Hahn (born October 30, 1976), also called the "Radioactive Boy Scout" or the "Nuclear Boy Scout", is an American who attempted to build a homemade breeder nuclear reactor in 1994, at age 17. A scout in the Boy Scouts of America, Hahn conducted his experiments in secret in a backyard shed at his mother's house in Commerce Township, Michigan. While his reactor never reached critical mass, Hahn attracted the attention of local police who found radioactive materials in the trunk of his car. His mother's property was cleaned up by the Environmental Protection Agency ten months later as a Superfund cleanup site. Hahn attained Eagle Scout rank in the Boy Scouts of America shortly after his reactor was dismantled.^[1]

While the incident was not widely publicized initially, it became better known following a 1998 Harper's article by journalist Ken Silverstein. Hahn is also the eponymous subject of Silverstein's 2004 book, The Radioactive Boy Scout.

Creation of the reactor[link]

Hahn is an Eagle Scout who received a merit badge in Atomic Energy and spent years tinkering with basement chemistry which sometimes resulted in small explosions and other mishaps. He was inspired in part by reading The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, and tried to collect samples of every element in the periodic table, including the radioactive ones. Hahn diligently amassed this radioactive material by collecting small amounts from household products, such as americium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lantern mantles, radium from clocks and tritium (as neutron moderator) from gunsights. His "reactor" was a bored-out block of lead, and he used lithium from $1,000 worth of purchased^[2] batteries to purify the thorium ash using a Bunsen burner.^[1]

Hahn posed as an adult scientist or professor to gain the trust of many professionals in letters, despite the presence of misspellings and obvious errors in his letters to them. Hahn ultimately hoped to create a breeder reactor, using low-level isotopes to transform samples of thorium and uranium into fissionable isotopes.^[3]

Although his homemade reactor never achieved critical mass, it ended up emitting dangerous levels of radioactivity, likely well over 1,000 times normal background radiation. Alarmed, Hahn began to dismantle his experiments, but a chance encounter with police led to the discovery of his activities, which triggered a Federal Radiological Emergency Response involving the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. On June 26, 1995 the United States Environmental Protection Agency, having designated Hahn's mother's property as a Superfund hazardous materials cleanup site, dismantled the shed and its contents and buried them as low-level radioactive waste in Utah. Hahn refused medical evaluation for radiation exposure.^[2]

Career[link]

After dropping out of community college, Hahn joined the Navy, assigned to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise as an undesignated seaman.^[2]

Hahn had hoped to pursue a nuclear specialist career. EPA scientists believe that Hahn may have exceeded the lifetime dosage for thorium exposure, but he refused their recommendation that he be examined at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station.^[2]

In culture[link]

The incident received scant media attention at the time, but was widely disseminated after writer Ken Silverstein published an article about the incident in Harper's Magazine in 1998.^[2] In 2004 he expanded it into a book, The Radioactive Boy Scout.

In the CSI: NY episode "Page Turner" the character Lawrence Wagner is based on David Hahn.^[4]

A television documentary, The Nuclear Boyscout, aired on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom in 2003.^[5] In it, Hahn reenacted some of his methods for the camera. Though slated to air on the Discovery Channel, the program has not yet been broadcast in the United States.

An item in the 1999 University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt instructs the participant to build "a breeder reactor ... in a shed."^[6] Notably, this item was successfully completed.^[7]

The nuclear expert and anarchist villain Derek Frost from the film Source Code was largely inspired by David Hahn.

2007 arrest[link]

On August 1, 2007, Hahn was arrested in Clinton Township, Michigan for larceny, in relation to a matter involving several smoke detectors, allegedly removed from the halls of his apartment building. In his mug shot, his face is covered with sores which investigators claim are possibly from exposure to radioactive materials.^[8] During a Circuit Court hearing, Hahn pleaded guilty to attempted larceny of a building. The court’s online docket said prosecutors recommended that he be sentenced to time served and enter an inpatient treatment facility. Under terms of the plea, the original charge of larceny of a building would be dismissed at sentencing, scheduled for October 4.^[9] He was sentenced to 90 days in jail for attempted larceny. Court records stated that his sentence would be delayed by six months while Hahn underwent treatment for radiation exposure.^[10]

Further reading[link]

• Ghiorso, Albert. Book review of The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor.^[11] August 9, 2004, issue of Chemical and Engineering News (pp. 36–37). An analysis is given of some of Hahn's work by Ghiorso, who has been involved in the discovery of about a dozen transuranium elements.

References[link]

External links[link]

• 'The Nuclear Boyscout' from Channel 4
• 'The nuclear merit badge' — Christian Science Monitor
• Smoke Detectors and a Radioactive Boyscout
• The Radioactive Boy Scout