If you had to be referred to with a noun that specified your gender as an adult man (if you’re not adult yet, answer as if you were), how would you like to be designated?
The option “a male” here refers only to the word as a noun, not an adjective: the noun pluralized as “males.”
In legal terms, “adult white male.”
In looser terms, “that man over there.”
In even more comfortable terms, “That guy. You know, the bloke with the eyeglasses. That goofy-looking jasper. The cob with the eyebrows. Tough wight to beat at Scrabble. Nice fellow if you stay away from sex, politics, and religion. A fun dude to hang with.”
'Sa problem, bub?
Duuuuuude.
It very much depends on who is doing the referring, and in what context.
mate, everyone in Australia is called mate even the sheilas!
Although I am partial to being called a bloke, cobber or sexy pants
None of those choices offend me.
This is very dependent on context.
“testicle-haver”
I try to be a gentleman. Missing from that list is ‘Sir’.
Doesn’t it depend wholly on context?
Exactly. None of the above would bother me much but a couple would sound weird in America.
“Guy”, though I nearly cast a write-in ballot for “studmuffin”.
It would be one cool groove to be called “cat” because that would probably mean I was about to be treated to some real hep jazz.
“Guy” is fine, but only if pronounced “Ghee”.
I prefer to be referred to as “God’s Gift to Women.”
They are all fine, except perhaps for “boy” or “lad” which are pretty content specific. Here in the US of A, I’d tolerate those only from an Irishman or a Scot.
I chose ‘man’ because I am boring.
Though the meaning of ‘gentleman’ includes ‘well-educated’ and ‘of a good family and distinction’, I do not act the part often. And when I do, I am acting.
Not boy or lad as I am neither and I would be weirded out if someone in casual conversation referred to me as a male. “You’re a male, what do you think of [male-related thing]”=weird. I really only like male and female in adjectival use. (And I don’t care what anyone says about using nouns as adjectives. Stop saying woman instead of female. She is not a woman doctor, a woman cop, a woman coach; she is a female doctor, cop or coach unless you would refer to him as a man nurse, a man teacher or a man receptionist which to my horror, I have seen some people begin to do.)
Gentleman or Sir.
If someone calls me boy, chance are good that we’re going to have a problem.