How George Ade Introduced Guys to Polite Company

Guy Fawkes

As I wrote last week, a key figure in making “OK” the universally used expression it is today was one George Ade, the Chicago- and Indiana-based popular humorist, newspaper columnist, and author of tales of ordinary folk, including his 1899 Fables in Slang.

He cleaned up slang words to make them suitable for all ages and genders. That meant leaving out a considerable number of words, some of which even today might bring a blush to the innocent cheek. But it meant also showing the way for all persons, high and low, to employ “OK.” His role was not to invent the well-established slang words he used, but to usher them into polite society.

That wasn’t the only word he cleaned up. “Guys” developed from the name of Guy Fawkes, point man in the Gunpowder Plot, who was stopped as he was about to ignite 36 barrels of gunpowder under the House of Lords at its opening session in 1605. Parliament responded early in 1606 by proclaiming every November 5 henceforth as a day of thanksgiving, to be celebrated by church services and bonfires.

The bonfires featured caricature effigies of Guy Fawkes, which were destroyed by fire just as Fawkes had intended to destroy Parliament. The effigies, naturally, were called “guys.” Over the next few centuries, the meaning of “guy” and “guys” extended to include people: at first just low-class, disreputable men, then men of bizarre appearance of any class, and eventually all men. In the 20th century, “guys” further spread to include women, at first groups of mixed gender, and then even groups of all women, as Lucy Ferriss noted yesterday in Lingua Franca.

“Guy” began extending from lower-class slang to respectability around the turn of the 20th century. As usual, there wasn’t a single turning point but a gradual drift toward the prominent place of “guys” today. But at that turning point, Ade was right in the forefront.

In his very first novel, Artie (1896), “guys” becomes a routine neutral word referring to groups of men. More than 40 instances of “guy” and “guys” are in the book, including these:

Talk about your Monte Carlo boys! Them guys last night was the gamiest I ever set down with.

W’y, if a guy ‘d floated in there with one o’ them Clarence outfits they’d ‘a’ hung him across a chandelier.

Artie looked at Miller and said: “I wish I knew where I could get some brainy guy to gi’ me lessons on this game.”

I’ll bet he’s one o’ them saucy guys that wears a big ribbon.

Yes, but this guy’s an Indian.

In Artie, “guy” is just a routine label for any man. Even more impressively, the novel provides the earliest example I have found for the combination “you guys.” It comes near the beginning:

Artie laughed dryly. “You guys must think I’m a quitter, to be scared out by any little old church show,” said he.

Nowadays “you guys” is increasingly the norm for addressing groups of people. There may be earlier instances, but Ade was certainly there at the creation.

In any event, His Stories, marked by Distinctive use of Ironic Capital Letters, are worth enjoying.