OnWords: Bro

You might be wondering why young people are calling each other a type of women’s underwear. But “brah,” is really a version of “bro,” a term with which even the oldest among us are familiar. “Bro,” is, of course, a shortening of “brother,” an expression expanding filial relationships beyond the literal family. Our everyday use of brother in this way goes back at least to the Great Depression with its anthem “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” Faith groups had used the word “brother” for millennia before that, to denote a family of co-religionists, and Shakespeare’s famous St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V has its title character calling together his knights as a “band of brothers.” But the “bro” of today is a more common reference, referring to anyone the speaker happens to be addressing. Its drift from “bro” to “brah” has now started to slide into “bruh,” and is applied regardless of gender. This casual use exists parallel to use that specifies a certain type of male, one we might