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Sir or guv?

Posted by David FG on September 09, 2004

In Reply to: Sir or guv? posted by James Briggs on September 08, 2004

: : : : Another line out of "The Burning Girl". The two men greet each other - they don't like each other. Tughan's the boss.

: : : : "Thorne..."
: : : : "Tughan..."
: : : : "I'll settle for 'Sir' or 'Guv'..."
: : : : "What about 'twat'?"

: : : : ...Charming language I know. Presumably tough cop speak. Anyway my question is... isn't there a world of difference between 'sir' and 'guv'? Isn't 'Sir' more official and 'guv' more a term of endearment that would be offered up only by a subordinate who actually liked their boss? Or is it used more generically than that? 'Guv' isn't one of the terms we Aussies have inherited from the poms.

: : : 'Guv' is apparently almost universal in the police services here. It was helped in its popularity by a TV series in the 1970s called 'The Sweeney' which was about an elite group within the Metropolitan (London) Police called the Flying Squad (Sweeney, as in 'Sweeney Todd' is rhyming slang for the Flying Squad) in which the characters always addressed more senior officers as 'Guv'. I agree, it is less formal than 'Sir' and I would have thought implied a certain degree of friendliness.

: : "Guv" is of course, short for "Guvn'r" - "The Governor" i.e. a single person in control whereas 'Sir' can be used of any superior. calling the boss, "the Guv" is both a mark of respect and of a level of familiarity -which 'sir' fails to convey.

: Not quite unversal in the UK. In the North the preferred word is, I believe, 'boss'.

Is it? Please forgive my Home Counties ignorance!

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