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This is why I'm concerned about the word "inclusive" in the original tweet. I don't want to see the Americanisation (or worse, San Franciscoisation) of all West

• rurp 4y ago
  I think you are spot on about this. Different communities and regions have varying definitions for words, and there are probably thousands of such cases. Trying to dictate one "correct" usage for each is extremely arrogant and disrespectful. Not to mention that meanings can evolve over time a great deal. If these types of corrections become common place I'm not sure what all of the ramifications will be but I suspect they will be bad on the whole.
• Swizec 4y ago
  As a European who moved to San Francisco a few years ago. I almost know how to use the 3 shells. (for anyone who doesn't get the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7nFEnFtvCM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7nFEnFtvCM)
• Ferrotin 4y ago
  > In Australia "guys" is a gender-neutral term when used collectively. It is in the U.S. too.
  • stjohnswarts 4y ago
    Yeah, it's mostly the people who tried to push "LatinX" on us that demand guys is sexist. They a very small, but extremely vocal minority on twitter and then internet in general.
    • sdoering 4y ago
      There is a fitting essay [0] by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. [0]: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
      • blowski 4y ago
        There is also an excellent chapter on it in Roger Scruton’s “Fools, Frauds and Firebrands” book.
    • memish 4y ago
      Why are Google and Microsoft enabling a small number of people with the power to dictate our language?
      • vimy 4y ago
        They work there.
      • usrn 4y ago
        This destruction of culture and language actually has the potential for a lot of short term gain by consumer facing corporations (Here's a good summary of how this sort of thing works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bRhMLhc8wQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bRhMLhc8wQ) Given that they can get away with practically whatever they want otherwise (look at how many people are still running Windows despite the completely unacceptable behavior by Microsoft) why wouldn't they do things that result in profit?
        • 4y ago
• stjohnswarts 4y ago
  I'm sure they will add controls to select which "english" to use just like Grammarly and others. You can then submit correction to colloquialisms if they come up.
• themanmaran 4y ago
  > commonly used and not considered non-inclusive by any Australian I know That argument has been used to defend all sorts of terms, some worse than others. The example you choose "guys" as gender neutral is also common in US english. But being common does not mean it is correct (racial and homophobic slurs were also common for a long time). - Group of women === "girls" - Group of men === "guys" - Group of women with one guy === "guys" - Group of men with one girl === "guys" The "guys" as gender neutral is clearly the result of patriarical society. But does that make the word _harmful_? Hard to say. I lean towards "no". But I'm not in the adversely selected group.
  • cloutchaser 4y ago
    How do you know how many women there are? Are you a biologist?
  • earleybird 4y ago
    The way languages are used - common usage is almost certainly correct. Correct is whatever is agreed upon by conversation participants. Correct in one group ain't necessarily so in another.
  • mdoms 4y ago
    Uhhhh now calling a group of adult women "girls" is legitimately offensive, even in Australia.
    • johnnyanmac 4y ago
      Yeah, it's belittling from what I heard. I don't really fully understand anymore since the golden rule has long gone out the window (I wouldn't be offended if someone approached me and me friends and said "Hey, boys". Maybe be a bit uncommon but I wouldn't think much of it).
      • serenitylater 4y ago
        The golden rule is a good starting point. As an abrasive person who doesn’t mind when people fight or argue at me, I tried to live by the golden rule and realized people want to be treated how they want to be treated, not how my autistic ass wanted to be treated. In the same way the term “boy” is never really used insultingly, but people use “girly” or “stop being a little girl” as an insult all the time. So it makes sense that you wouldn’t be offended by the similar term, but some women may not like girls so much. I think this is reasonable and treating people how they want to be treated is the ultimate goal.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• sdoering 4y ago
  I totally agree. When I started at my current job there was one primarily English speaking person in our weekly teams meeting. For her (an Australian) guys was always inclusive. She used it all the time even for purely female groups. Color me irritated when we at the company were advised not to use it anymore by our inclusiveness people.
• mpalczewski 4y ago
  I've always understood "folks" to mean parents. Not sure I understand how this is a better term.
  • johnny22 4y ago
    Folks has been used to describe a group of people in the southern US for a long time. In pop culture it was used like that by Porky Pig at the end of Looney Toons with "That's all, Folks!" (i couldn't remember the how the stutter goes though)
  • nkurz 4y ago
    I think your understanding is mistaken, or at least regional. While it can mean "parents" when used in the plural with a possessive ("my folks", "your folks", sometimes even "the folks"), in modern American English it's as commonly just a synonym for "people". Using "folks" (especially in the plural) to mean people can be rather "folksy", though, and I wouldn't be too surprised if some textbook or dictionary mentioned just the "parent" definition. Did you learn it this way as a second language, or as a native speaker somewhere non-American?
  • mdoms 4y ago
    Being asked to use "folks" in Australia was frankly bizarre. It's not a word anyone uses over there and would be considered a severe Americanism. Pretty sure that suggestion came from our Texas staff, not the Californians.
    • reaperducer 4y ago
      Pretty sure that suggestion came from our Texas staff, not the Californians. Fortunately, Austin isn't representative of the majority of Texas, or America. It's like Portland, but with better weather. (Just last week I learned that "Keep Austin Weird" predates "Keep Portland Weird" by five years.)
  • deathanatos 4y ago
    Depends on context: > Hey folks, what's the status of that document? Just means the people being addressed. > Are your folks coming to dinner? is, "Are your parents coming to dinner?" Wiktionary lists both as definitions: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/folks#Etymology_1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/folks#Etymology_1
• reaperducer 4y ago
  In Australia "guys" is a gender-neutral term when used collectively It is in 99% of America, too. It's just a few angry self-important people who like to shout on the internet who are happy to tell you otherwise.
  • xracy 4y ago
    Is the counterpart to "Guys" a gender-neutral term when used collectively?
    • reaperducer 4y ago
      There is not always a counterpart. "Guys" can be used as a collective noun to address a group of people regardless of the genders of the individuals in the group. That's the point.
      • xracy 4y ago
        There is a counterpart to "guys". People, not infrequently, say "guys and gals" which means that the guys is gendered. "There is not always a counterpart", means that you recognize there is (at least) sometimes a counterpart. And in English, (unlike say, French or Spanish), the fact that so few words are gendered means that it's actually relevant when they are. Guys is masculine, Gals is feminine. There are actually unambiguously non-gendered plurals "y'all", "them", "yins". Some of these are colloquial, but their existence also points to the fact that there are groups that weren't served exlusively with the gendered "guys".
        • Macha 4y ago
          Is the word "actor" a problem then? It has had historical male implications, and has a female counterpart, actress? Yet actress is slowly falling out of favour, which is why you have awards now called e.g. Best Female Actor. Gals comes across as even more old fashioned than actress in my region - it's a term that feels like it walked out of a movie old enough that it had to advertise that it had colour. Sometimes, as the world evolves, gendered terms get replaced by new gender neutral terms. Sometimes the meaning evolves in different ways (e.g. doctor and nurse are no longer gendered equivalents of each other, as the division in roles has continued to be useful even after the gender stereotypes as to who does those roles slowly fades). And sometimes one term just subsumes the other. And sometimes, these changes happened many decades ago in other countries that are not yours. It's not very inclusive to expect those people to defer to American expectations of those terms.
• JoshTriplett 4y ago
  When people talk about a term being "gender-neutral", that doesn't just mean "people use this term to refer to people of all genders"; many people also mean "do people of all genders, upon hearing this term, feel included, rather than othered". For instance, using "guys" to refer to a group emphasizes the idea that "guy" is the default and "not guy" is the exception not worth noting. "not considered non-inclusive by any Australian I know" does not mean "not considered non-inclusive by any Australian". You've just given an example of the type of response that you and potentially some of your colleagues might give to people attempting to raise this issue. How many people you know might accurately predict that that would be your response, and thus not raise the issue because it would cause strife? Inclusiveness is not exclusively an "American" issue, nor is it a matter of being "easily offended". Someone raising this issue to you may not be expressing offense; they may be expressing a desire to include people. (This is not an argument specifically for "folks"; I fully agree that you shouldn't necessarily adopt a specific replacement term if that term doesn't make sense locally. Perhaps there's an inclusive term that does make more sense locally, to avoid having something that feels like a loanword.)
  • barrkel 4y ago
    The strife is an ongoing American cultural war, however. Other countries generally have much more important ongoing local battles. It's a good political angle to hew in the US because it's very hard to attack - it's structurally similar to many past moral panics.
  • jollybean 4y ago
    That's a good point, however, the original point still stands. The term 'hey guys' may very well be materially 'inclusive' enough that it doesn't warrant intervention necessary. In much the same way 'landlord' is not materially a non-inclusive term either. If you want to split hairs, it's a never ending problem, the sweater will come apart. Some people draw the line at 'hey guys' - some people draw the line at 'landlord'. And FYI - your statement about 'Inclusivity is not an American problem' reeks of ugly cultural Imperialism. Though there's surely a kernel of truth, more than likely the applied manner will boil down to 'Americans version of everything at the remote office' - which is paradoxically might be 'exclusionary' of other cultures, like those in Australia. A better approach might be to let Australia figure it out on their own.
• mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
  God yes I hate how US centric a lot of this stuff is.
• jandrewrogers 4y ago
  FWIW, "guys" is the default gender-neutral collective term commonly used in large parts of the US, including the west coast, even when the speaker and the collective are all female. The term "folk" has connotations such that it isn't always appropriate, and sounds a bit old-fashioned regardless -- it is not a suitable replacement. If the intent is to gender the collective because it is germane, the common term varies quite a bit with region (most of the women I'm around, raised in big west coast cities, use "girls"). I've lived all over the US and learned to code switch the regional dialects. I've never seen anyone get upset about someone not using the local default collective term in good faith. Trying to get Americans to speak the same version of English is a futile task.
• cjbgkagh 4y ago
  I thought the etymology for ‘guys’ was a group of children dressed like Guy Fawkes at events in England. Boys and girls did it so the term was gender neutral, informal, and endearing.
• 2143 4y ago
  Isn't it ironic that in the name of inclusiveness, certain words are excluded? > I don't want to see the Americanisation (or worse, San Franciscoisation) of all Western cultures. I've started observing that fixes for American problems are rolled out globally. For instance, the default branch of VCS repos being recommended to be changed from "master" to "main". Totally out of context where I'm from.
  • krapp 4y ago
    > Isn't it ironic that in the name of inclusiveness, certain words are excluded? No, because the point of inclusiveness in this context is to be inclusive of humans and human cultures, not words. Excluding words which themselves exclude humans leads to the inclusion of those no longer excluded humans. It isn't difficult.
    • 2143 4y ago
      Thanks for clearing that up :)
• mitchdoogle 4y ago
  The trouble with 'guys' when referring to women - The English language doesn't offer many gender-inclusive alternatives, like the Spanish ustedes or the German ihr. With no good phrase for the plural of 'you,' the plural term 'guys' ended up evolving into the colloquial alternative to refer to a group of people, regardless of whether group members are male or female. However, Reuters Graphics explains that “people who speak languages with stronger gender associations tend to have stronger gender stereotypes, a 2020 study of 25 languages found. A 2021 study in Israel showed that when women were addressed in a math exam using male pronouns, their scores were low. When they were correctly identified with feminine pronouns, scores rose by a third.” But many people quite fairly still see 'guys' as a gendered word—the dictionary defines the singular 'guy' simply as 'man.' Sherryl Kleinman, a former professor at the University of North Carolina, discusses in her 2002 essay Why Sexist Language Matters that gender-specific language like 'guys' can affect even children: "I worry about what people with the best of intentions are teaching our children. A colleague’s five-year-old daughter recently left her classroom crying after a teacher said, “What do you guys think?”. She thought the teacher didn’t care about what she thought. When the teacher told her that of course she was included, her tears stopped. But what was the lesson? She learned that her opinion as a girl mattered only when she’s a guy. She learned that men are the norm." - Sherryl Kleinman, Why Sexist Language Matters Even though most people who use the term don't do so with the intent of it being sexist or exclusive of women, it can and often does cause women to feel left out of the conversation. Imagine you used 'gals' to refer to a room full of men and women—do you think the men would respond? - Taken from https://www.hotjar.com/blog/gender-inclusive-language-workplace/ https://www.hotjar.com/blog/gender-inclusive-language-workpl...