Just for the record, I'm an American citizen living in New Zealand.
><quote> This use of "lad" strikes me as being a local colloquialism </quote>
>
>Have you ever seen British war time films which use "lads" to refer to a
>band of young men of military age. And what about that old pommy TV program
>called "The Likely Lads" about a group of rascally mates.
As an ignorant yankee, I can't recall seeing such films or the TV
program. Perhaps this particular use of "lads" is more common than I
imagine, but certainly I never heard this use in America and neither do
I hear it in this city. So, for where I live "lads" would not convey to
me the meaning of NA`AR which you say it has.
In this list "lad" appears to me to mean "young boy" without derogatory
connotations.
Bill Rea, Information Technology Dept., Canterbury University \_
E-Mail b dot rea at it dot canterbury dot ac dot nz </ New
Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax 64-3-364-2332 /) Zealand
Unix Systems Administrator (/'