Girl

A girl is a female human from birth through childhood and adolescence to attainment of adulthood when she becomes a woman. The term girl may also be used to mean a young woman, and is often used as a synonym for daughter.

Etymology

The English word girl first appeared during the Middle Ages between 1250 and 1300 CE and came from the Anglo-Saxon words gerle (also spelled girle or gurle). The Anglo-Saxon word gerela meaning dress or clothing item also seems to have been used as a metonym in some sense.

Girl has meant any young unmarried woman since about 1530. Its first noted meaning for sweetheart is 1648. The earliest known appearance of girl-friend is in 1892 and girl next door, meant as a teenaged female or young woman with a kind of wholesome appeal, dates only to 1961.

Usage for adults

The word girl is sometimes used to refer to an adult female, usually a younger one. This usage may be considered derogatory or disrespectful in professional or other formal contexts, just as the term boy can be considered disparaging when applied to an adult man. Hence, this usage is often deprecative. It can also be used deprecatively when used to discriminate against children ("you're just a girl").

English

English may refer to:

Galway Girl

"Galway Girl" or "The Galway Girl" is a song written by Steve Earle and recorded with Irish musician Sharon Shannon, which was featured on Earle's 2000 album Transcendental Blues.

A cover version of the song by Mundy and Shannon reached number one and became the most downloaded song of 2008 in Ireland, and has gone on to become the eighth highest selling single in Irish chart history.

Plot

"Galway Girl" tells the semi-autobiographical story of the singer's reaction to a beautiful black haired blue eyed girl he meets in Galway, Ireland. Local references include Salthill and The Long Walk.

References in popular culture

"Galway Girl" featured in the 2008 Bulmers cider advertising campaign.

The song appears in the 2007 film P.S. I Love You, where Gerard Butler's character sings the song for Hilary Swank's character. This was also sung by Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character to Swank.

The song featured in the TV series Treme (in episode 9 of the second series, entitled "What Is New Orleans?"). It was performed by Steve Earle (in his role of Harley, a street musician) with Lucia Micarelli and Spider Stacy (of The Pogues) accompanying him on violin and pennywhistle.

Galway

Galway (/ˈɡɔːlweɪ/; Irish: Gaillimh, pronounced [ˈɡalʲɪvʲ]) is a city in the West of Ireland in the province of Connacht. Galway City Council is the local authority for the city. Galway lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay and is surrounded by County Galway. It is the fourth most populous urban area in the Republic of Ireland and the sixth most populous city in the island of Ireland.

According to the 2011 Irish Census, Galway city has a population of 75,528; however, the rural county agglomeration is far bigger.

Name

The city's name is from the river Gaillimh (River Corrib) that formed the western boundary of the earliest settlement, which was called Dún Bhun na Gaillimhe ("Fort at the mouth of the Gaillimh"). The word Gaillimh means "stony" as in "stony river" (the mythical and alternative derivations are given in History of Galway). Historically, the name was Anglicised as Galliv, which is closer to the Irish pronunciation as is the city's name in Latin, Galvia.

Ed Sheeran

Edward Christopher "Ed" Sheeran (born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter and musician. He was born in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk. After dropping out of school at 16, he moved to London the following year, in 2008, to pursue a career in music. In early 2011, Sheeran independently released the extended play, No. 5 Collaborations Project, which caught the attention of Elton John and Jamie Foxx. After signing with Asylum Records, his debut album, + (read as "plus"), was released on 9 September 2011 and has since been certified six-times platinum in the UK. The album contains the single "The A Team", which earned him the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. In 2012, Sheeran won the Brit Awards for Best British Male Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act.

Sheeran's popularity abroad began in 2012. In the US, he made a guest appearance on Taylor Swift's fourth studio album, Red. "The A Team" was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2013 Grammy Awards, where he performed the song with Elton John. He spent much of 2013 opening for Swift's The Red Tour in North America dates. In late 2013, he performed three sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden as a headline act. He was nominated for Best New Artist at the 2014 Grammy Awards.