6 ms·

Some of this is so colloquial. Where I live, 'guys' is even used by women, when speaking to a group of other women. People assuming how they use language, is

Some of this is so colloquial. Where I live, 'guys' is even used by women, when speaking to a group of other women. People assuming how they use language, is right, assumes that there is one language, eg, one english, not many. Very 'centre of the universe' thinking.

kevincox 5y ago
While this is true isn't it helpful to make people feel included. I grew up in Toronto, Canada where "guys" was widely used as a gender-neutral term in most contexts (admittedly there are some phrases where a gender is heavily implied). However when I was working at a tech company in Dublin, Ireland I noticed that if I addressed a room with "guys" women in the room would often feel excluded. This is not unreasonable given the different dialects and the minority of women in this setting. So sure, we could say that she is wrong for feeling excluded but when many minorities already feel excluded it seems wrong to use language that reaffirms that nagging feeling constantly whispering to them from the back of their mind. And avoiding the term "guys" is a simple case even though "Y'all" and "folks" sound really odd to me, I agree that there is a huge spectrum here and the line of what is reasonable and what isn't is incredibly fuzzy.
- bbarnett 5y ago
  While this is true isn't it helpful to make people feel included. In some cases, I found it the opposite. I've discussed this with a woman or two, as I was curious, and didn't want to offend. And they felt it includes them. Nothing is changed because they are there, they're just "one of the guys". Not a woman, or a man. Just another person in the group. You cite Dublin, and that's valid. And yet, that was me point. Here was have a world spanning company, Google, which should be as "metropolitan' as they come, blathering on about setting world-wide language policy, from the viewpoint of a small little US state. Seems very, very colloquial to me. If you're going to work in a world-spanning company, thinking your culture, in your little, tiny corner of the world, is "right" all the time is absurd.

kevincox 5y ago

While this is true isn't it helpful to make people feel included. I grew up in Toronto, Canada where "guys" was widely used as a gender-neutral term in most contexts (admittedly there are some phrases where a gender is heavily implied). However when I was working at a tech company in Dublin, Ireland I noticed that if I addressed a room with "guys" women in the room would often feel excluded. This is not unreasonable given the different dialects and the minority of women in this setting. So sure, we could say that she is wrong for feeling excluded but when many minorities already feel excluded it seems wrong to use language that reaffirms that nagging feeling constantly whispering to them from the back of their mind. And avoiding the term "guys" is a simple case even though "Y'all" and "folks" sound really odd to me, I agree that there is a huge spectrum here and the line of what is reasonable and what isn't is incredibly fuzzy.

bbarnett 5y ago
While this is true isn't it helpful to make people feel included. In some cases, I found it the opposite. I've discussed this with a woman or two, as I was curious, and didn't want to offend. And they felt it includes them. Nothing is changed because they are there, they're just "one of the guys". Not a woman, or a man. Just another person in the group. You cite Dublin, and that's valid. And yet, that was me point. Here was have a world spanning company, Google, which should be as "metropolitan' as they come, blathering on about setting world-wide language policy, from the viewpoint of a small little US state. Seems very, very colloquial to me. If you're going to work in a world-spanning company, thinking your culture, in your little, tiny corner of the world, is "right" all the time is absurd.