A fly guy in British English too?

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hi everyone,

Can you please tell me if the phrase ‘a fly guy’ meaning ‘a cool guy’ used in British English too?

Thanks,
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]

TOEIC listening, photographs: An office meeting[YSaerTTEW443543]

2

That’s AmE? If so, it’s very slangy– I’ve never heard anyone use it. I just found it in the dictionary as a Briticism:

–adjective British Informal.

  1. clever; keen; ingenious.
  2. agile; nimble.
3

Hi Charles, have you heard of the American band Offspring? They’re very popular, at least in Europe. Out of interest you might google the phrase ‘pretty fly for a white guy’ to learn more about them.[YSaerTTEW443543]

TOEIC listening, photographs: A person enjoying the day[YSaerTTEW443543]

4

Hi Torsten,

“pretty fly for a white guy” is slang and it means that he’s pretty cool, considering he’s white. It’s slang in the Rap scene (not that I like Rap).

Claudia

5

Thanks, Torsten, but I haven’t much time for or interest in pop music. I prefer to pick up my slang here at English-test.net.

6

:lol: Two thumbs up!

Claudia

7

Haha!

I happen to know this song by the Offspring from when I was still young (I liked it very much). If I remember correctly, it ironically uses some corny words that are not cool, like “girlies” and “trendy”; or at least words that were once “cool”, but not so any more: the protagonist is a loser. I think I’d put “fly guy” in this category, since my dictionary gives a quote from 1906 (and calls it originally and chiefly American). Slang words tend to have limited expiration dates, unless they are ironically and successfully revived, as was “groovy” in the nineties - but even that revival was short lived, if I am not mistaken.

8

Yeah, the singer is being sarcastic when he sings “pretty fly for a white guy”.

Claudia

9

I would say a “fly guy” is a spiv, someone who makes a living by cheating others.

10

:lol: Let’s leave it up to Torsten to decide which one of us is right.

Claudia

11

‘Fly’ in the context of the song is used as an adjective in rap slang, meaning ‘cool’. The “correct” usage is "He/she is fly’, not ‘He is a fly guy’, as far as I know.

However, there is the phrase ‘fly girl’, which is used to refer to a backup singer/dancer in rap videos. I think the term may have originated with the sitcom ‘In Living Color’, which made its ‘Fly Girls’ (their house dance troupe a regular feature of the show.

To further confuse things, there is the phrase ‘fly boy’, which is military slang for a pilot. I don’t know for a fact, but I’m assuming there’s a corresponding term ‘fly girl’ in military slang for female pilots. The military slang ‘fly boy’ has been around ever since WW II, or maybe even earlier.

12

From the OED on fly (a.):

[5.] fly boy orig. and chiefly U.S., (a) a sharp or shrewd young man; (b) (esp. in Black English) a stylish or sophisticated young man.
1888 in Random House Hist. Dict. Amer. Slang (1994) I. 791/1 Jim Blake lived in the country, and though a pretty fly boy among the rustics was not up in the ways of the outside world. 1896 G. Ade Artie vi. 57 Here comes a whole crowd o’ people—a lot o’ swell girls and their fly boys. The car was nearly full. 1950 A. Lomax Mr. Jelly Roll 182 Here were the fly boys of the burgeoning entertainment industry. 1980 L. Cody Dupe ii. 13 Bit of a fly-boy, anyway, I shouldn’t wonder. 1993 Independent 18 Feb. 22/6 The rapper Butterfly+tries to push the hip vernacular to implosion-point, unleashing a stream of all-purpose, timeless hepcat babble that would be just as easily understood by Fifties beats as Nineties fly-boys.

fly guy = *fly boy above.
1906 in Random House Hist. Dict. Amer. Slang (1994) I. 792/1 They’re fly guys there all right+. But the flyer they are the easier it is to trim them. 1979 S. Robinson et al. Rapper’s Delight (song) in L. A. Stanley Rap: the Lyrics (1992) 322 So I rocked some vicious rhymes like I never did before She said, ‘Damn, fly guy, I’m in love with you The Casanova legend must have been true.’

On “fly girl”:

U.S. slang.
Also fly-girl.

  1. A lewd or sexually promiscuous young woman, esp. a prostitute.
    1893 Farmer & Henley Slang III. 41 Fly-girl,+a prostitute. 1986 ‘Ice T’ Six in the Morning (song) in B. Cross It’s not about Salary (1993) 25 Posse’d to the corner where the fly girls chill, Threw some action at some freaks 'til one bitch got ill+. As we walked over to her, hoe continued to speak So we beat the bitch down in the goddamn street. 1994 People Weekly (U.S.) 8 Aug. 19/1 Shanice is Gidget goes Fly Girl, bumping, grinding and cooing her way through a string of sex-kitten manifestos+. Yet for all of the do-me posturing, Shanice is still a romantic.

  2. An attractive or stylish young woman (orig. and chiefly Black English).
    1979 S. Robinson et al. Rapper’s Delight (song) in L. A. Stanley Rap: the Lyrics (1992) 319 ‘Cause I’m ‘a get a fly girl Gonna get some spank ‘n’ Drive off in a def OJ. 1980 G. Jackson Spoonin’ Rap (song) in L. A. Stanley Rap: the Lyrics (1992) 304 ‘Cause I’m the baby-maker, I’m the woman taker I’m the cold crushin’ lover, the heartbreaker So come on fly girls, please don’t stop. 1993 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 23 Dec. 3/4 The grunge look introduced into the mainstream earlier this year is already old-hat in the United States. This summer look out for ‘fly girls’ in ‘slammin’ threads’ and ‘stud muffins’ who are ‘cool like dat’.