A young woman is puzzled when her boyfriend’s father says he was looking for someone who needs a good boy Friday. It’s most likely a reference to Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe. The title character spends 30 years on a remote tropical island and eventually saves the life of an islander who becomes his helper. Crusoe decides to call him Friday, since that’s the day of the week when they first encountered each other. Over time, English speakers began using the term man Friday to mean a manservant or valet, and later the term girl Friday came to mean an office assistant or secretary. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “How “Man Friday” and “Girl Friday” Led to “Boy Friday””
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi.
Hi, who’s this?
This is Allie from Indianapolis, Indiana.
Hi, Allie, how you doing?
Pretty good, how are you?
All right.
What’s up?
Well, I had called in about a question I had about something that my boyfriend’s father had said to me.
He was staying with us for a little bit, recuperating from some health problems, and I was talking with him about what he was going to be doing next.
And he told me that he was just going to look into somebody who would need a good boy Friday.
I had no idea what that meant, and when I asked him what it meant, he couldn’t really explain it to me.
I assume it means somebody who needs some help working on stuff around their house or something like that, but my boyfriend doesn’t know what it meant either.
So that’s my question is what that means or where it comes from.
I’ve never heard it before.
So he was volunteering himself to be somebody’s helper?
He was just talking about it.
He was just saying, well, I think I’ll just go and be somebody’s good boy Friday.
And that’s, I mean, he’s a little bit older.
He really probably couldn’t physically help somebody do stuff.
He was just talking about it, and I didn’t know what it meant.
You know, when you first said that, I was thinking, good boy.
I was thinking like a dog or something.
Yeah.
It’s got semantic content.
It’s about parsing, though.
It’s Good Boy Friday instead of Good Boy Friday.
Yeah.
Have you ever heard the term Man Friday?
No.
Girl Friday?
No.
Okay.
Have you ever read Robinson Crusoe?
I have not.
Okay.
There we go.
There we go.
Okay.
Yeah.
The term Man Friday is a reference to Friday, who was a character in the story Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe back in 1719.
It’s a story of a guy who was stranded on a tropical island for, what, 30 years, Grant?
A long time.
Something like that.
I don’t remember.
Yeah, years and years and years.
And this guy, he saves the life of this indigenous man and then decides to give him the name Friday, teaches him English, converts him to Christianity, eventually takes him back across the ocean.
And Man Friday came to be a term that meant somebody who was a helper, somebody who… like your manservant, aide to camp, your ballot, your Batman, that sort of thing.
Yeah, pretty much your servant.
And then in the 1920s, people started using the term Girl Friday.
You know, I’ll have my Girl Friday call your Girl Friday, meaning a secretary or somebody who helps you around the office.
Or am I calling you an admin assistant today, kind of the all-purpose helper who solves all the, you know.
Yeah.
Boy Friday, I haven’t heard that much at all.
No, but it’s a logical extension, right?
Yeah.
I wasn’t sure if it was like a regional type of term or, you know, I highly doubt he’s ever read Robinson Crusoe.
Oh, yeah?
-huh.
Yeah.
-huh.
It had a life of its own outside the book, so it’d be easy for somebody to pick it up without having read it.
I would say that both Man Friday and Girl Friday are old-fashioned.
Girl Friday definitely being marked as sexist these days, and Man Friday just as plain old old-fashioned.
How recently was it that he said Boy Friday?
It was probably about a month and a half ago.
Oh, okay. That’s weird.
Well, it’s still sticking around.
How’s that sound, Allie?
It makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, right. Well, our best to all of you.
Thanks for calling, Ellen.
Yeah, thank you so much.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
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