My Buddy

Yesterday I listen to an older guy who grew up in Charlestown talk about Boston Harbor while looking at old photos at the New England Seafarer's Mission. An overhead from 1968, commenting on Schrafts or Domino plants that were there, and what was there now. 1994 and the beginning of the Ted Williams Tunnel. But some things would suddenly puzzle him, a picture of a building that fell between years that he knew what it was used for. "Well, that couldn't have been part of the Navy Yard then, that closed in '74." He would wonder who was still alive who might know the answer. He would tag a lot of lines "I'll have to ask my buddy about that."

I thought he was talking about the same guy who was extra-knowledgeable about the subject, but I gradually came to understand that he was talking about a series of buddies. I wondered when I had last heard it used conversationally like this, while recognising that it had been very common in my youth.  I very much doubt I ever used it myself, nor any of my friends. It was something from my father's generation, though it could have extended to a point halfway between us. I think "My buddies" might have hung on longer. My friends, my pals, my guys - these things change gradually, much more slowly than slang words for things that especially good or especially bad.

Buddy is a word that changes greatly in tone depending on usage now.  One might say it very kindly and encouragingly to a young boy, even a baby. It is used similarly with a dog or other animal, though there is an element of calming the beast or testing whether it is safe. You can shout it across a parking lot to kindly draw someone's attention to a thing about to happen, like a door he left open.  Or it can be directly challenging to another man (women use it this way to set limits with men as well) to smarten up. Hey buddy! You can't go cutting in line like that.  

But used as the guy at the mission used it yesterday, it's an old guy word.  That it hung on directly around Boston doesn't surprise me.  I would bet that it was used in Quincy and Waltham longer than Scituate and Sudbury.