Programme 24: toyboy

Toy boy. There’s a class of very unusual words in English, they’re called "reduplications" or "reduplicated forms": "bow wow, says the dog". Well, you can hear the reduplication – the two words are almost the same, it’s just the first part that changes. "Helter skelter"… Words like this are reduplicated forms, and new ones are really rather unusual, but toy boy has come along in the last 10 or 15 years. It’s British slang, from the 1980s. It refers to an attractive young man being kept as a lover by another person, by an older person, that’s crucial: the older person is keeping the younger man as that person’s toy boy. It’s the rhyme that made it popular. "Toy girl" seems rather boring by comparison. toyboy - pohledný mladý muž, kterého si vydržuje starší osoba willy-nilly - ať chce nebo nechce helter skelter - (tobogán), něco chaotického, jedna akce za druhou, hlava nehlava to come along - objevit se rhyme - rým crucial - důležitý