Gendered words for (adult) people : comments [Peter]

Depends whether it's singular or plural. I don't mind at all being one of a group of "boys" in contexts like "what do the boys think?".

I don't think I'd mind a third-party reference to myself; e.g. somebody asking "who was that boy you were with?". Referring to me directly as a "boy" however would be a bit odd, but whether or not it was offensive would depend on intent, it could be demeaning or it could just be jokey.

I can't think of any time where being referred to as a man would trouble me.

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"who was that boy you were with?"

Hmm, that's an interesting one, because (assuming I've inferred the context correctly) it faintly implies a connection with "boyfriend", one context in which the syllable "boy" is largely uncontroversial to use even of grown men.

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Incidentally, you may want to s/syllable/morpheme. According to the link: a morpheme is is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning. So the syllable "boy", I think, is a morpheme in "boyfriend" but not in "flamboyant".

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I nearly said that, but at the last minute couldn't quite remember if it was quite the right word or not...

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Interestingly I find it almost *worse* when people, even other women, refer to a bunch of women as girls. It can come off either mildly patronising, a bit childish, or just too girly-feminine for me.

Now I've got that awful tune from the Boots adverts in my head. Argh.

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