Boy

A boy is a young male human, usually a child or adolescent. When he becomes an adult, he is described as a man. The most apparent difference between a typical boy and a typical girl is the genitalia. However, some intersex children with ambiguous genitals, and genetically 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

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"). Although 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.

Boys (1996 film)

Boys is a 1996 American film starring Winona Ryder and Lukas Haas. The film was originally titled The Girl You Want. The film earned $516,350 in the United States box office. It is based on a short story called "Twenty Minutes" by James Salter.

The film is set in an East Coast boys' boarding school in the United States, and was shot in Baltimore, Maryland and on the campus of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, which represents the school.

Plot

John Baker Jr. (Lukas Haas) is a boy bored with his life at an upper middle class boarding school, and the prospect of his future running the family grocery store chain. He no longer sees the point in school, stating what's the difference if he gets a zero attendance for being three minutes late or skipping the whole class so he might as well skip the class. Now close to graduating from boarding school, his life is turned upside down when he rescues Patty Vare (Winona Ryder), a young woman he finds lying unconscious in a field. Patty regains consciousness that evening in John's dormitory. She stays awake long enough to tell him she will not go to a doctor, and then passes out and does not awaken until the next morning. She seems to recover completely and to be grateful for John's assistance; the two begin a romantic voyage of self-discovery. This is not without its problems, as other boys in the dorm quickly find out she is being hidden in his room, leading up to a dramatic confrontation with Baker's close friends where his 'best friend' becomes enraged and punches a wall, breaking his hand, while the two continue to argue over the reason as to why Baker has hidden her in his room.

Boys (The Shirelles song)

"Boys" is a song by Luther Dixon and Wes Farrell, originally performed by The Shirelles and released as the B-side of their "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" single in November 1960. It was covered by The Beatles and included on their first album released in the United Kingdom, Please Please Me (1963).

The Beatles version

The Beatles' version was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on February 11, 1963, in a single take, and is Ringo Starr's first recorded lead vocals with the Beatles; and, as the fifth track on the Beatles first album, Please Please Me, represents the first time many fans heard Starr singing on a lead vocal. February 11 was a marathon day for the Beatles, as they recorded 10 of the 14 tracks they needed for Please Please Me. The band covered an additional song by the Shirelles on their first album, "Baby It's You".

The Beatles did not concern themselves about possible homosexual undertones that go with singing a song about boys, although they altered the gender pronouns employed on the Shirelles' version (e.g. "My girl says when I kiss her lips..."). In an October 2005 Rolling Stone interview, Paul McCartney stated: "Any one of us could hold the audience. Ringo would do 'Boys', which was a fan favourite with the crowd. And it was great — though if you think about it, here's us doing a song and it was really a girls' song. 'I talk about boys now!' Or it was a gay song. But we never even listened. It's just a great song. I think that's one of the things about youth — you just don't give a shit. I love the innocence of those days." (The lyrics talk specifically about a boy kissing a girl, not another boy.)