4 ms·

The context of dating makes it no longer gender neutral. ("Guys and gals") But I've definitely heard people refer to groups composed entirely of women as "you

The context of dating makes it no longer gender neutral. ("Guys and gals") But I've definitely heard people refer to groups composed entirely of women as "you guys".

giraffe_lady 2y ago
I've still never heard, for example "this guy" when referring to eg a specific female coworker. I live in the midwest. "You guys" is frequently used as a genderless plural sure I guess but "guy" is not gender neutral.
- Ajedi32 2y ago
  Right, it's only the plural that's gender neutral. Kinda like how in Spanish "abeula" means "grandma", "abuelas" means "grandmas", and "abuelo" means "grandpa", but "abuelos" means "grandparents", not "grandpas". The masculine plural is gender inclusive in most contexts.
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    Ok but that's a different claim than the one I was originally replying to. And anyway the masculine plural being genderless is a convention of romance languages, which english is not. It is not useful or consistent to describe expectations for english usage in terms of the features of other languages. Negative concord and invariant be are common language features globally but you don't hear white americans scrambling to include them in standard usage.
    - Ajedi32 2y ago
      There are plenty of other situations in English where the masculine plural is gender inclusive (probably because so much of English is borrowed from romance languages). For example, "actors" can refer to both male and female actors, "actresses" cannot. Identity politics has resulted in certain groups making concerted efforts to try to eliminate such usages, but it's still an ingrained part of our language.
      - giraffe_lady 2y ago
        [flagged]
        Ajedi32 2y ago
        "it" in this case referring to gender inclusive masculine plural nouns as a feature of the English language, not the particular use of "you guys" as one. That phrasing may well be new. Actually it seems like the phrase "you guys" is itself pretty new, see: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=you+guys&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=you+guys&year_...
  - parpfish 2y ago
    Singular example: If you call a plumber and they say “I’ll send a guy over”, there’s no implication that it’s male. Singular and genderless.
    - lupire 2y ago
      Not sure I agree.
- zer8k 2y ago
  Context changed the use of language. If you know any foreign languages you know two words that are more or less the same carry a different meaning in context.

The context of dating makes it no longer gender neutral. ("Guys and gals") But I've definitely heard people refer to groups composed entirely of women as "you guys".

giraffe_lady 2y ago

I've still never heard, for example "this guy" when referring to eg a specific female coworker. I live in the midwest. "You guys" is frequently used as a genderless plural sure I guess but "guy" is not gender neutral.

Ajedi32 2y ago
Right, it's only the plural that's gender neutral. Kinda like how in Spanish "abeula" means "grandma", "abuelas" means "grandmas", and "abuelo" means "grandpa", but "abuelos" means "grandparents", not "grandpas". The masculine plural is gender inclusive in most contexts.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  Ok but that's a different claim than the one I was originally replying to. And anyway the masculine plural being genderless is a convention of romance languages, which english is not. It is not useful or consistent to describe expectations for english usage in terms of the features of other languages. Negative concord and invariant be are common language features globally but you don't hear white americans scrambling to include them in standard usage.
  - Ajedi32 2y ago
    There are plenty of other situations in English where the masculine plural is gender inclusive (probably because so much of English is borrowed from romance languages). For example, "actors" can refer to both male and female actors, "actresses" cannot. Identity politics has resulted in certain groups making concerted efforts to try to eliminate such usages, but it's still an ingrained part of our language.
    - giraffe_lady 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - Ajedi32 2y ago
        "it" in this case referring to gender inclusive masculine plural nouns as a feature of the English language, not the particular use of "you guys" as one. That phrasing may well be new. Actually it seems like the phrase "you guys" is itself pretty new, see: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=you+guys&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=you+guys&year_...
- parpfish 2y ago
  Singular example: If you call a plumber and they say “I’ll send a guy over”, there’s no implication that it’s male. Singular and genderless.
  - lupire 2y ago
    Not sure I agree.
zer8k 2y ago
Context changed the use of language. If you know any foreign languages you know two words that are more or less the same carry a different meaning in context.