4 ms·

"Folks" is all including without specifics to any identity and doesn't seem to carry the exclusion weight of "Those people". People while also all including te

"Folks" is all including without specifics to any identity and doesn't seem to carry the exclusion weight of "Those people". People while also all including tends to bring with it the identity war with it. I use folks as a 1:1 to avoid the above.

ghostpepper 3y ago
What groups are excluded by "people"?
lolinder 3y ago
I'm not opposed to "folks" in the abstract, but I would honestly say the opposite of what you just said: "people" is entirely neutral, while "folks" is often used specifically to signal which side of the culture war the speaker is on. It's a shibboleth that says to others that you've been told that "people" has negative connotations and you are willing to adjust your speech based on what you've been told, but said negative connotations are not actually present in any dialect of English I've ever heard spoken.
- fluidcruft 3y ago
  Which side of which culture war? Both Biden and DeSantis use the word... a lot.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    I didn't say "folks" was exclusively used that way—it's just a normal neutral word in some dialects—but I've been specifically told by some people (like OP) that they started using "folks" even though it's not common in their native dialect because it is more inclusive of all identities than "people" is. Used that way it's a shibboleth. Used by DeSantis it's a part of Southern U.S. English. I've even seen people spell it "folx" in writing to make it clear that they're using it as a shibboleth, since as you note it can be ambiguous in the absence of other dialectical markers.
    - fluidcruft 3y ago
      We're supposed to modify our English because there's some vague accusation that some foreigners somewhere are doing something? I don't get it.
      - lolinder 3y ago
        I'm not saying anyone should modify their speech. I'm saying some people in the US are modifying their speech based on what they've been told the connotations of the word "people" are. As I noted above, there are no such connotations in standard American English, so the speech modification is purely performative. Re: foreigners, this whole discussion is very US-centric, when I say "dialects" I'm talking about different varieties of US English, not anything outside the US.
        fluidcruft 3y ago
        OP is directly asking me to modify my speech with some ridiculous link to Obama. And then you said it signals one side of "the culture war" and you're just completely vague about what war you're talking about and which side it signals. You do mention "folx" which I have only rarely encountered and I figured was one of those dumb socially engineered unhuman words that nobody (particularly the people it refers to) actually uses such as "latinx". But the title of the post doesn't even use "folx".
        amenhotep 3y ago
        Do you use folks naturally, or do you use it because you've been told people is offensive? In neither of those cases is the OP asking you to modify your natural speech; he is fine with the first case, and in the second case he is telling you not to modify your speech based on what others have said about it! If you naturally use it because you genuinely believe people is offensive, then he's absolutely telling you to modify your speech, but that is because he thinks you are wrong and you are the problem and he directly disagrees with you and he's not shy about it, which I think is fine. There's no pretence at neutrality there, and if you are neutral then he's not saying what you think.
- vector_spaces 3y ago
  There is nothing wrong with the word "people", I didn't use it only because I was trying to meet size restrictions and was too dense when I posted this to remember that the word "inmate" exists. All the strange culture war accusations are made even stranger by weird assumptions like this -- I don't know a single human being who has a problem with the word "people". I'm sure someone out there does, but I would conjecture that the vast majority of people -- even the folks you think of when using the word "culture war" -- have no problem with it
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Like I said, I have no issue with people using "folks" as a sub-in for "people", and I wasn't trying to implicate you at all in the rest of my comment. I was just responding to this comment from OP: > People while also all including tends to bring with it the identity war with it. I agree with you that I don't know anyone who has a problem with the word "people", but I do know several people (now including OP) who believe that some people do and make an effort to use "folks" to appease those (as far as I can tell fictional) people.

ghostpepper 3y ago

What groups are excluded by "people"?

lolinder 3y ago

I'm not opposed to "folks" in the abstract, but I would honestly say the opposite of what you just said: "people" is entirely neutral, while "folks" is often used specifically to signal which side of the culture war the speaker is on. It's a shibboleth that says to others that you've been told that "people" has negative connotations and you are willing to adjust your speech based on what you've been told, but said negative connotations are not actually present in any dialect of English I've ever heard spoken.

fluidcruft 3y ago
Which side of which culture war? Both Biden and DeSantis use the word... a lot.
- lolinder 3y ago
  I didn't say "folks" was exclusively used that way—it's just a normal neutral word in some dialects—but I've been specifically told by some people (like OP) that they started using "folks" even though it's not common in their native dialect because it is more inclusive of all identities than "people" is. Used that way it's a shibboleth. Used by DeSantis it's a part of Southern U.S. English. I've even seen people spell it "folx" in writing to make it clear that they're using it as a shibboleth, since as you note it can be ambiguous in the absence of other dialectical markers.
  - fluidcruft 3y ago
    We're supposed to modify our English because there's some vague accusation that some foreigners somewhere are doing something? I don't get it.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      I'm not saying anyone should modify their speech. I'm saying some people in the US are modifying their speech based on what they've been told the connotations of the word "people" are. As I noted above, there are no such connotations in standard American English, so the speech modification is purely performative. Re: foreigners, this whole discussion is very US-centric, when I say "dialects" I'm talking about different varieties of US English, not anything outside the US.
      - fluidcruft 3y ago
        OP is directly asking me to modify my speech with some ridiculous link to Obama. And then you said it signals one side of "the culture war" and you're just completely vague about what war you're talking about and which side it signals. You do mention "folx" which I have only rarely encountered and I figured was one of those dumb socially engineered unhuman words that nobody (particularly the people it refers to) actually uses such as "latinx". But the title of the post doesn't even use "folx".
        amenhotep 3y ago
        Do you use folks naturally, or do you use it because you've been told people is offensive? In neither of those cases is the OP asking you to modify your natural speech; he is fine with the first case, and in the second case he is telling you not to modify your speech based on what others have said about it! If you naturally use it because you genuinely believe people is offensive, then he's absolutely telling you to modify your speech, but that is because he thinks you are wrong and you are the problem and he directly disagrees with you and he's not shy about it, which I think is fine. There's no pretence at neutrality there, and if you are neutral then he's not saying what you think.
vector_spaces 3y ago
There is nothing wrong with the word "people", I didn't use it only because I was trying to meet size restrictions and was too dense when I posted this to remember that the word "inmate" exists. All the strange culture war accusations are made even stranger by weird assumptions like this -- I don't know a single human being who has a problem with the word "people". I'm sure someone out there does, but I would conjecture that the vast majority of people -- even the folks you think of when using the word "culture war" -- have no problem with it
- lolinder 3y ago
  Like I said, I have no issue with people using "folks" as a sub-in for "people", and I wasn't trying to implicate you at all in the rest of my comment. I was just responding to this comment from OP: > People while also all including tends to bring with it the identity war with it. I agree with you that I don't know anyone who has a problem with the word "people", but I do know several people (now including OP) who believe that some people do and make an effort to use "folks" to appease those (as far as I can tell fictional) people.