Calling certain men "boys", like calling women "girls" has a long history within white supremacy & misogyny. For "boy", it's why African American men started referring to each other as "man": as a countermeasure to people steeped in white supremacy calling them "boys".https://twitter.com/Mikel_Jollett/status/1011255085773434880 …
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In the UK it's particularly depressing: "between them, Harrow and Eton have 26 British prime ministers among their old boys." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_boy_network …
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Either way, the main and important difference is the phrase is self applied versus forced upon you by another group/person.
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“Old” not always literal. There are white right-wing young fogeys, too, of course. BTW, the use of ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ in a denigrating way does seem language-dependent.
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Just like the words for genitals and sexual acts. What is commonly acceptable in one language (or maybe culture), even in public (radio, tv) and civilised company, is totally unacceptable in another.
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I'm bilingual and one of my languages is of a lower sociolectic rung and that culture is diglossic, so I'm highly familiar with that.
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I said ρε once to a Greek person's mum and everybody Greek explained how rude I am.

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I was talking about English though, just to be 100% clear.
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I know. I just find these differences between languages (and indeed sociolects) interesting.
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