The podictionary word for today is guy: Leo Durocher was a baseball player and manager who is the originator of the phrase, “nice guys finish last.”  By this he clearly meant, as we do now, “nice male persons finish last.”  Sometimes unidentified persons are linked to specific names, like the customers of prostitutes are named Johns. 

Come to think of it John doesn’t come off very well in this department since an unknown body is a John Doe and when someone is being broken up with they get a Dear John letter.  But guy is a little different that John or Tom, Dick and Harry.  There is a specific guy named Guy that is being referenced behind that anonymity.  In 1605 England was a protestant country, but there were Catholics who still weren’t happy about it.  Some of them decided to blow up a joint session of the House of Lords and the House of Commons while the King was making a speech. 

They rented a building next door that conveniently had a basement that ran along under the building where the King was to make his speech. This fellow named Guy Fawkes brought in barrels and barrels of gun powder but he got caught before any sparks flew and was executed.  This was not done in any sort of humane manner and so it became as sort of national holiday complete with bonfires and effigies of the late lamented Guy Fawkes. 

For centuries since, little children would take old clothes and stuff them with straw or newspaper and cart them around the neighborhood in preparation for bonfires and fireworks on Guy Fawkes day.  These manikins were of coarse known to represent the person Guy Fawkes, but the formality with which they were referred diminished, perhaps understandably, until the word guy, just meant “some person.” 

It wasn’t until 200 years later, in 1806 that we have the first citation of this guy meaning just “any guy.”  Of coarse the formal name Guy had been in use for hundreds of years before that.  I mentioned in the episode on the word neat that there was an old legend from the 1300s or before of a Guy of Warwick. 

The name goes much further back through French and into Germanic roots where it might have been pronounced wit, or witu.  The musical Guys and Dolls was based on a book by a guy named Damon Runyan.  Now that’s a pretty unusual name and I was surprised one day when I went into a government office to have my passport processed to see a name plate on the clerk’s desk that said Damon Runyan.  I wondered if in that job he and his colleges needed to remain anonymous.  Just to be some guy to the customers.