# Feller, fella, fellow



## Wordsmyth

_This post is from another thread, but on a different subject. So, to avoid being off-topic, I've started this new thread to add my comment._

_(There are other threads concerning "fella", but only in the Forums for French, Spanish, etc)_



Nicole9z said:


> Dear English Apprentice,
> 
> I just wanted to share with you my perspective of the word "fellers."
> 
> In the U.S., "fellers" is slang, and to my knowledge is a term used by only Southerners. There are certain stereotypes associated with the Southern culture, including that Southerners talk slow and are not well-educated. So, just know that there is an energy in that word that can possibly affect the hearer's view of its speaker. Also, the word "fellers" refers strictly to males. A southern word that refers to females is "gals." However, the common/casual phrase used to refer to the general public is "guys and gals" or "Ladies and Gents." A more modern way to say "fellers" is "fellas." However, I know that many portenos have learned the British form of English. So, please forgive any misunderstanding of mine. At least now you have but a perspective about this word in U.S. English.


 

Hi Nicole, and welcome to the Forums.

Just to round off your explanation, let's not forget that "feller" and "fella" are derivatives (essentially representing different pronunciations) of "fellow". 

See http://www.wordreference.com/definition/fellow , for a big range of definitions and usage (and WR threads involving "fellow"). Definitions 3 & 4 also show that "fellow" is not limited to males.

W


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## languageGuy

Interesting, wordsmyth.

Certainly 'fellow' is not limited to males, but don't you think that 'feller' and 'fella' are? Who would use Definitions 3 & 4 and pronounce it any other way than 'fellow?'


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## Kevin Beach

*Fellow* comes from late OE *feolaga*, derived from *feoh* + **lag*, meaning one who lays down money in a joint enterprise.

But there is also *fellah*, which is a (mainly Egyptian) Arabic word meaning a peasant.

In my experience they are now used interchangeably in BrE, as a colloquialism for "man" and a synonym for "chap" (also BrE) and "guy" (still mainly AmE).


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## Wordsmyth

languageGuy said:


> Interesting, wordsmyth.
> 
> Certainly 'fellow' is not limited to males, but don't you think that 'feller' and 'fella' are? Who would use Definitions 3 & 4 and pronounce it any other way than 'fellow?'


 
Absolutely, LG. Female fellows but no female fellas. Unless of course, '_fellas_' evolves as '_guys_' has (in the plural anyway), to include both sexes.

W


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## kitenok

> 'fellow' is not limited to males, but don't you think that 'feller' and 'fella' are


This reminded me of an old Abbott and Costello comedy routine about the pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, _Bob Feller_. Lou Costello is going to a Cleveland Indians baseball game.
Bud Abbott asks him: Feller pitching?
Costello: Certainly there's a feller pitching... what do you think they'd use a girl?
Abbott: Oh, I…I know they don’t use a girl… I said, "Feller pitching…"
Costello: What feller?
And so on and so forth. You can read the whole thing here.  

Incidentally, Abbott and Costello, who built a routine around the pronunciation "feller," were not from the southern US. They were from New Jersey. I would say this pronunciation is considered substandard, but I don't think it is particularly southern.


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## Wordsmyth

Kevin Beach said:


> *Fellow* comes from late OE *feolaga*, derived from *feoh* + **lag*, meaning one who lays down money in a joint enterprise.
> 
> But there is also *fellah*, which is a (mainly Egyptian) Arabic word meaning a peasant.
> 
> In my experience they are now used interchangeably in BrE, as a colloquialism for "man" and a synonym for "chap" (also BrE) and "guy" (still mainly AmE).


 

So, Kevin, if two Egyptian peasants club together to buy a bit of land, I guess they're 'fella fellas' .

But seriously, this is interesting. I wonder, particularly for BrE, how much the present-day usage owes to late OE (and the continued use of "fellow" since then) and how much to the completely different Egyptian origin (imported, I guess, only since the 19th century, along with numerous pots, sarcophagi and Cleopatran needles). I'll probably have to go on wondering, unless someone with some in-depth etymological knowledge gets back on this.

W


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## Kevin Beach

Wordsmyth said:


> So, Kevin, if two Egyptian peasants club together to buy a bit of land, I guess they're 'fella fellas' .


I like it! 



Wordsmyth said:


> But seriously, this is interesting. I wonder, particularly for BrE, how much the present-day usage owes to late OE (and the continued use of "fellow" since then) and how much to the completely different Egyptian origin (imported, I guess, only since the 19th century, along with numerous pots, sarcophagi and Cleopatran needles). I'll probably have to go on wondering, unless someone with some in-depth etymological knowledge gets back on this.
> W


Thinking it through, I suspect that the OE version led to "Fellows" of colleges and learned institutions, whereas the Arabic version became the (originally slightly insulting) colloquialism.


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## Franzi

kitenok said:


> Incidentally, Abbott and Costello, who built a routine around the pronunciation "feller," were not from the southern US. They were from New Jersey. I would say this pronunciation is considered substandard, but I don't think it is particularly southern.


 
I assume that 'feller' occurs wherever accents have intrusive R and 'fella' occurs wherever they don't.  I'd expect it to vary by social class as well as region, and I don't think it's distinctively Southern either.


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## Wordsmyth

Kitenok, your Abbott and Costello story reminds me of the one about the two **** lumberjacks looking at job ads. "Ideal for us", says one, pointing at an ad: _'Tree fellers wanted'_. "No good" says his friend, "Dere's only two of us!"

(**** insert any group whose accent makes '_th_' sound like '_t_'). I'm not going to risk treading on toes by choosing any particular one!

W


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## Loob

Kevin Beach said:


> Thinking it through, I suspect that the OE version led to "Fellows" of colleges and learned institutions, whereas the Arabic version became the (originally slightly insulting) colloquialism.


I don't think you need to postulate an Arabic influence; the second vowel in similar words such as "yellow" or "follow" can also - informally - become _schwa_ in many varieties of English


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## Kevin Beach

Loob said:


> I don't think you need to postulate an Arabic influence; the second vowel in similar words such as "yellow" or "follow" can also - informally - become _schwa_ in many varieties of English


Well, the _Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (OUP 1986)_ gives entries for both *fellow* and *fellah* and explains them in the way that I plagiarised reported.


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## Wordsmyth

Kevin Beach said:


> [...]
> Thinking it through, I suspect that the OE version led to "Fellows" of colleges and learned institutions, whereas the Arabic version became the (originally slightly insulting) colloquialism.


 
I suspect it might be less simple than that. I'm thinking of "fellow" in Shakespearian usage, e.g "But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave" (Richard III, Act 1, Sc.2), which surely predated the Arabic influence, yet had already taken the sense of 'man/chap/guy'. Also the AmE use of 'fella/feller' probably wasn't much influenced by the Arabic source.

On the other hand, re Loob's


Loob said:


> I don't think you need to postulate an Arabic influence; [...]


 
I don't doubt for one minute that the Arabic "fellah" is a 'co-source', (a) because the Concise Oxford says so, (b) because dozens of other Arabic and Indian words came into BrE usage during the (hrmm) 'colonial' era.

My guess is that present-day usage (meaning 'man') is a fusion of the two separate origins.

W


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## Loob

Ummm... the first OED citation of "fellow" with the meaning "man/male person" is from c1440


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## paintedhouse113

_Fella_ is perhaps a phonetic spelling if that is of any interest; certain southern accents' short 'o' sometimes becomes a neutral vowel in unstressed syllables, such as in _window_ and _yellow_.


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## ewie

Wordsmyth said:


> the one about the two **** lumberjacks looking at job ads


That's the second outing for *that particular joke* I _just happen_ to have read this week, Wordsmyth


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## timpeac

Franzi said:


> I assume that 'feller' occurs wherever accents have intrusive R and 'fella' occurs wherever they don't.  I'd expect it to vary by social class as well as region, and I don't think it's distinctively Southern either.


I suspect it's more that for non-rhotic speakers "feller" and "fella" sound the same and so the "feller" form is used to represent the sound of the word since so many more words ending with the sound "uh" for those speakers are spelt ending in "er" rather than "a".

It's not unusual in some regions to replace final "ow" with "er" - "yellow"/"yeller" "window"/"winder" etc. Perhaps because words ending in "ow" are themselves so small in number compared to those ending in "er".

Edit - just read paintedhouse's comment saying a similar thing. Yes - in London accents too.


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## Forero

I've heard that leveling of final unstressed vowels was common in the old Appalachian and Ozark hill dialects, and it happens to a limited degree in rural areas all over the Midsouth.  What is most interesting is that speakers differ on how they pronounce that leveled vowel.  Depending on the speaker, it can be _oh_, _uh_, _er_, _ih_, or _ee_.

My father pronounced _Missouri_, _ravioli_, _program_, _fellow_, and _yellow_ with the _uh_ final vowel.  My third cousin once removed (older) did the same thing and also pronounced _purer_ and _elder_ with the _uh_ final vowel.  His father was from Mississippi.

My Oklahoma relatives, including my father's uncle, pronounced these words (except for _program_) with the _er_ final vowel.  The way they pronounce _feller_ (fellow) in the movie _Oklahoma_ sounds authentic enough to me.


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## Wordsmyth

Loob said:


> Ummm... the first OED citation of "fellow" with the meaning "man/male person" is from c1440


 
OK Loob, that ties in with Shakespeare — he was after 1440 

Just to be clear about what I meant by "fusion", *my theory* would go like this:

"Fellow" (from OE _feolaga_) takes "male person" as one of its meanings sometime before 1440, and that stays until the present day (meanwhile also crossing the Atlantic), and is sometimes pronounced "fella" for all the reasons given in this thread. Then, independently, (~19th century?) English-speakers in Egypt and other points east adopt "fellah" (perhaps initially to mean "lowly person"). By similarity, this use and the use of "fellow" pronounced as "fella" fuse into one. Hence my use of the term 'co-source'.

All this is pure speculation on my part (I don't have the _Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_ to hand) — and I stand ready to be corrected by anyone who knows better 

W


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## Loob

Hi W

It's just that I don't think that "fellow" (plural "fellows") and Arabic "fellah" (plural "fellahin") *have* 'fused into one'


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## Kevin Beach

Wordsmyth said:


> All this is pure speculation on my part (I don't have the _Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_ to hand) — and I stand ready to be corrected by anyone who knows better
> W


The CODEE shows both words as separate entries and doesn't attempt to link them.



			
				Loob said:
			
		

> Hi W
> It's just that I don't think that "fellow" (plural "fellows") and Arabic "fellah" (plural "fellahin") *have* 'fused into one'


I doubt that many Anglophones would consider the different plural forms before deciding which to use in the singular. I can imagine British imperialists _(that's a description, not a political statement)_, being familiar with "fellow" at home, encountering "fellah" in Arab-speaking British colonies and marking the similarity.

But I can also imagine some accents in the southern USA rendering the "-ow" as "-ah" or "-uh".

Perhaps it's one of those occasional coincidences of language, that similar words from two completely different sources have come to mean virtually the same thing in common use.


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## ewie

I'm not sure how relevant (if at all) this might be, but I do seem to recall that when I used to read my sister's *Jackie* magazine (c.1974), young boys were routinely referred to as _fellahs_.


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## Wordsmyth

Kevin Beach said:


> [...]
> 
> I doubt that many Anglophones would consider the different plural forms before deciding which to use in the singular. I can imagine British imperialists _(that's a description, not a political statement)_, being familiar with "fellow" at home, encountering "fellah" in Arab-speaking British colonies and marking the similarity.
> 
> But I can also imagine some accents in the southern USA rendering the "-ow" as "-ah" or "-uh".
> 
> Perhaps it's one of those occasional coincidences of language, that similar words from two completely different sources have come to mean virtually the same thing in common use.


 
Thanks Kevin,

I was wondering what to say next, and you did it for me. I couldn't have summed it up better.

W


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## Nicole9z

Wordsmyth, I truly appreciate the insight on this word. I had forgotten the idea of women as fellows, such as fellow classmates. However, I am confused about how I would simply refer to a woman as a fellow...I cannot in a million years imagine myself saying "Hey fellow!" to a female friend. ??


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## Franzi

Nicole9z said:


> Wordsmyth, I truly appreciate the insight on this word. I had forgotten the idea of women as fellows, such as fellow classmates. However, I am confused about how I would simply refer to a woman as a fellow...I cannot in a million years imagine myself saying "Hey fellow!" to a female friend. ??



"She is a fellow at [name of institution]."

I would not say "Hey fellow" to much of anyone, male or female.


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## Nunty

Franzi said:


> "She is a fellow at [name of institution]."
> 
> I would not say "Hey fellow" to much of anyone, male or female.



A friend of mine is a fellow in Infectious Medicine at a large teaching hospital. She jokingly refers to herself as "a gal" in Infectious Medicine.

Why is this funny? I think because while a "fellow" of a college or a faculty may be female today, it still jars the ear because of the clear masculine sense of the word.

There might be something similar in "male nurse", "lady mailman" and simliar expressions.


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## ewie

Franzi said:


> I would not say "Hey fellow" to much of anyone, male or female.


Nor would I, Franzi.  Though it's not all that unusual to hear British chaps addressing one another as _fella ("How's it going, fella?")_

(I probably shouldn't mention this but ... it's not all that unusual to hear British chaps refer to a certain part of their anatomy as _me old fella _... )


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## Wordsmyth

Nicole9z said:


> Wordsmyth, I truly appreciate the insight on this word. I had forgotten the idea of women as fellows, such as fellow classmates. However, I am confused about how I would simply refer to a woman as a fellow...I cannot in a million years imagine myself saying "Hey fellow!" to a female friend. ??


 
"Hey, fellow forum member Nicole" 

Well, it's true that I wouldn't address a FRAeS (Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society) or FIMechE (Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers), whether female or male, by saying "Hey fellow!"

But I might well say to a female fellow traveller (if I were feeling particularly theatrical that day), "Hello, fellow traveller".

... Or to a woman with a streaming cold as bad as mine (if I had one), "Heddo feddow sufferer"

W


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## wy8928

As a comment on usage, one would be more in rhythm by simply saying 'Hi/Hey guys' instead of 'Hi fellers' at least in northern California. 'Hi fellers' without a vocal reference gives the impression of a jeer. It connotes an uneducated register.

Cheers!


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## GreenWhiteBlue

The pronunciation of "fellow" as "feller" in certain American accents is hardly a unique change of that sound.  All one has to do is to think of the book, and later the movie, about an aging yellow dog: _Old* Yeller*._  I will also point out that there are more than a few working-class accents in the US (including the one I grew up hearing) that would pronounce a word spelled "feller" as _fella_.  I have heard "fella" (as in "some fella came by yesterday and said he was your cousin", or the Broadway musical _The Most Happy Fella_) my whole life, and I have always understood it to be a variant of _fellow_, the careful and "correct" pronunciation of which was considered to be a little precious, and a bit of an affectation along the lines of putting one's flowers in a container that one called a _vahz_ instead of a _vayz_.  I am quite certain that as far as American English is concerned, there is no relation of the word "fella" to anything other than "fellow".


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## Kevin Beach

Isn't it common for -o and -ow endings to be pronounced as -uh or -ah in AmE, particularly in the southern states?


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## Forero

Kevin Beach said:


> Isn't it common for -o and -ow endings to be pronounced as -uh or -ah in AmE, particularly in the southern states?


If the word is common, ends in an unstressed long _o_, and is not seen as a foreign word, it is common to pronounce the _o_ as _-uh_.  _Fellow_ is a perfect example.

I have never heard long _o_ pronounced as _-ah_, except inasmuch as _-ah_ might also be pronounced _-uh_.


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## daffodiltulip

The word fellow can only refer to a woman if it is used as the term for a member of an academic society.
It can also be the "other half" of something, for example, a bedfellow, or one of a pair can be referred to as the fellow of the other.


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## midlandman

Nunty said:


> A friend of mine is a fellow in Infectious Medicine at a large teaching hospital. She jokingly refers to herself as "a gal" in Infectious Medicine.
> 
> Why is this funny? I think because while a "fellow" of a college or a faculty may be female today, it still jars the ear because of the clear masculine sense of the word.
> 
> There might be something similar in "male nurse", "lady mailman" and similar expressions.


I would just like to point out that most words in English do not have a gender. So to refer to to 'fellow' being a masculine word would not be correct. Although I have heard men call each other fellow or in NA fella I have not heard many women refer to each other in the same way.

Since fellow originally meant a partner in a business venture it definitely has male overtones and comes from 'Old Norse' felagh. At the same time it is commonly used in England in working class areas as 'fellah', the Anglicized Arabic spelling. In Arabic countries where this word is used it references both men and women as it does in English speaking countries, it has no gender.

It's use in England spread among the working class as England became more involved with Arabic nations and was commonly used and spoken with the 'ah' ending and meant peasant. Since the Industrial revolution forced peasants off the land and into the cities and thence into the factories. In fact in Arabic countries a person who was not a 'fellah' (peasant) would refer to their superiors (land owners etc) as 'effendi' and where I come from in Britain (The Black Country) this word was used to mock land-owners and factory-owners and equally in return the 'effendi' used 'fellah' to mock the former peasants, now factory workers. It is not always obvious from language use that there are strong cultural elements that are not described by the word itself nor it's origin.


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## midlandman

midlandman said:


> I would just like to point out that most words in English do not have a gender. So to refer to to 'fellow' being a masculine word would not be correct. Although I have heard men call each other fellow or in NA fella I have not heard many women refer to each other in the same way.
> 
> Since fellow originally meant a partner in a business venture it definitely has male overtones and comes from 'Old Norse' felagh. At the same time it is commonly used in England in working class areas as 'fellah', the Anglicized Arabic spelling. In Arabic countries where this word is used it references both men and women as it does in English speaking countries, it has no gender.
> 
> It's use in England spread among the working class as England became more involved with Arabic nations and was commonly used and spoken with the 'ah' ending and meant peasant. Since the Industrial revolution forced peasants off the land and into the cities and thence into the factories. In fact in Arabic countries a person who was not a 'fellah' (peasant) would refer to their superiors (land owners etc) as 'effendi' and where I come from in Britain (The Black Country) this word was used to mock land-owners and factory-owners and equally in return the 'effendi' used 'fellah' to mock the former peasants, now factory workers. It is not always obvious from language use that there are strong cultural elements that are not described by the word itself nor it's origin.


I guess what I am saying is that fellow and fella are not synonymous because the history of the word use needs to taken in context. Fellow and Fellah can mean what they originally meant.


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## ewie

If anyone can provide incontrovertible evidence that English _fella/fellah/feller_ has any connexion whatever with Arabic _fellah_, I will gladly eat that person's hat


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## Loob

I'll join you, ewie.


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## kentix

In Appalachia, a holler is the term for, in standard English, a hollow in the land, i.e. a small valley.


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## Hermione Golightly

I thought a holler is what goes with a hoot, in AE.

You use the word 'fellow', don't you, to mean 'some man', like 'guy'?
Do women use 'fella' or 'feller' to mean a boyfriend/lover or whatever?

Anyway, I think I'll join the potential hat-eating club.


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## kentix

You mostly see "fellow" said in movies from the '50s by someone like Gary Cooper.

I can also imagine it in a few semi-set expressions said with a twinkle in the eye.

_What's up with, John? He seems to be a very happy fellow today._


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## midlandman

ewie said:


> If anyone can provide incontrovertible evidence that English _fella/fellah/feller_ has any connexion whatever with Arabic _fellah_, I will gladly eat that person's hat


My Dear Sir, gustatorial as eating a hat might be I will decline your offer to eat my hat. I assume the evidence you seek is some empirical scientific facts written by a profoundly knowledgeable person about these kinds of things. Well I don't have it. What I have is the use of the word by the British in the colonies in Egypt and India. In Egypt a fellah was peasant/farmer and in India simply a man or a boy in the Hindi language. Considering most of my relatives served in non-commissioned positions during the course of WWII in both those countries and more they and other like them bought back those words and used them to mean what they mean, fellah in Arabic for peasant and fella in Hindi for a boy or a man.

Fellows however were from a different class of people than the downtrodden and misused English peasants and factory workers. Rarely do people consider how much difference existed for a couple of decades after WWII. Particularly when people came to realize that back at home once more they were to be treated like nothing better than an Egyptian peasant. I take it we are on opposite side of that social divide.

As for proof. My proof is my personal experience with those words.

As for my hat, it has been autographed by kindly American Movie Stars and is worth a lot more than the hat you might expect to eat, and considering its content, 100% cotton, it would indeed be edible.


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## Andygc

Source: the OED

The word "fellah" meaning a peasant in Arabic countries first appeared in English in, it appears, the mid-18th century.
The word "fellah" being a representation of an alternative pronunciation of "fellow" appeared in 1864. 

The use of "fellow" in various spellings predates Chaucer. It seems odd to claim that the common man did not start using it until the middle of the 20th century. That is, using it in the same way as the common man also used "bloke". As in "There was this bloke/fellow/fellah/feller walking up the road".



midlandman said:


> fella in Hindi for a boy or a man.


Could you provide evidence for that? The nearest representation of a Hindi word I've been able to find is "faill" meaning "spread". "Man" seems to be "manushya", "aadmi", "purush", "insaan" or "nar", depending on the precise meaning.



> 1864   J. S. Le Fanu _Uncle Silas_ II. xiii. 203   I did see two horses yoked to a shay, and a fellah a pullin' a box up o' top.


A representation of the speech of a peasant, not of a member of the oppressive upper classes.

And midlandman seems unaware that good old Tommy Atkins came into contact, in large numbers, with Arabic-speakers long before the Second World War.


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