A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address
This was at one time a far more commonly used first name than it is at the present time. The frequency of its occurrence caused it to be used as a generic term for any man. It is still often used as a transferred name when addressing a stranger.
‘I don’t know anyone by that name, Jack,’ says a woman rather aggressively to a young man who has telephoned her late at night, in The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D.Salinger. There is a friendly use of the term to a stranger in Daughters of Mulberry, by Roger Longrigg, three more friendly examples in The Hiding Place, by Robert Shaw, an unfriendly instance in Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis, sixteen friendly examples in The Liberty Man, by Gillian Freeman, the high number being caused by the fact that they are addressed to a seaman wearing his uniform. By tradition seamen are particularly likely to be addressed by this name.
The two uses of ‘Jack’ to a stranger in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, by Alan Sillitoe, are neither friendly or unfriendly, but warily neutral. In certain situations ‘Jack’ becomes a transferred name because a speaker quotes ‘I’m all right, Jack’. The allusion is to a saying: ‘Pull the ladder up, Jack, I’m all right,’ the general meaning being that ‘I don’t care what happens to you or anyone else now that I’m safe’.
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