4 ms·

Many people use you guys not as a plural of guy, i.e. a male person, but closer to the sense of the Southern y'all, an all inclusive mode of address. Wikipedia

by Jun8 12y ago

Many people use you guys not as a plural of guy, i.e. a male person, but closer to the sense of the Southern y'all, an all inclusive mode of address. Wikipedia lists is under you cognates as "Used regardless of the genders of those referred to" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You). In Britain it seems you lot has similar usage. The gender neutrality seems to be well-established in common usage, e.g. see the top answer answer to this ESE questions and the comments (http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/11816/is-guy-gender-neutral http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/11816/is-guy-gend...). We should understand that languages change, certain idioms and usages which were a bit objectionable in the past may change in meaning and vice versa. I think you guys represent the former. It may hurt gender-based sensibilities of some but many languages have build in defaults that use the masculine form, a well-known example is French where (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neutral_pronouns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neut...): In French: Vos amis sont arrivés — ils étaient en avance ("Your friends have arrived – they were early"). Here the masculine plural pronoun ils is used rather than the feminine elles, unless it is known that all the friends in question are female (in which case the noun would also change to amies and the past participle would change to arrivées). I am always a bit surprised by the emphasis put on gender neutral language, esp. in the US, it is usually pointed that this is sexist and may lead to many of the gender imbalances. Yet other languages where this is is even more prevalent does not seem to place that much emphasis, e.g. French (http://french.stackexchange.com/questions/836/given-the-lack-of-a-gender-neutral-pronoun-in-french-how-should-one-refer-to-so http://french.stackexchange.com/questions/836/given-the-lack...). I do not speak French, my question to native speakers is: are there similar efforts in French to rid the language of sexism? According to Wikipedia L’Académie française does not quite support such movements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages_with_grammatical_gender#French http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages_...).

vog 12y ago
It may still be advisable to avoid phrases that are easily misunderstood, even though they technically may be correct. To put it differently, this is still dismissing quite a big share of non-native English speaking women, as you can't be sure that those subtleties are well-known in the public. (This whole sub thread demonstrates this, by the way.)
picks_at_nits 12y ago
I used to feel the way you do, that “guys” is gender-neutral. However, I have encountered a large number of women who appear to be unaware that they are included when people say “you guys,” and they feel dismissed. I could lecture them about how wrong they are, but I could also use phrases that are not subject to misunderstanding. Things like this remind me of code. If I write something that is compiler-correct, but subject to misunderstanding, I could demand that people who find it confusing go read a few more books. Or I could write it to be read by my audience. With code, we’ve nearly universally decided that we write to be understood, and that the audience for our code is more important than whether we are “compiler correct.” JM2C, but that’s how I feel about the word “guys” being gender-neutral. It is dictionary-correct, but not audience-correct.
- Jun8 12y ago
  Good point, but I think you have it totally backwards: the usage in this case is audience-correct but not dictionary-correct. In fact, I think you guys is a good example where "language rules" have not caught up with usage. An important thing to understand is that language is not governed by a strict rules, such as compilers, it's based on a social contract, in fact Wittgenstein pushed this idea to its extreme by declaring that a word's meaning is its use (this idea is not without it's own problems, of course). I think the problem here is not that the people who object to the usage can understand the correct usage (in fact such usage is prevalent among the high-school crowd, which you can readily observe if you teach) but that they see it as sexist usage, e.g. similar to objecting to use of stewardess. I would suggest the correct approach here would give them the similar cases of y'all and you lot, not as a fry lecture but as a frank discussion.
- tomjen3 12y ago
  That is probably the best argument for it, but what alternative is there for a audience-correct gender neutral guys? Do we really have to borrow yeall?
  - cstross 12y ago
    What's wrong with "people"? As in, "you people"? (Grammatically correct, non-colloquial, non-regional, and gender neutral.)

by Jun8 12y ago

vog 12y ago

It may still be advisable to avoid phrases that are easily misunderstood, even though they technically may be correct. To put it differently, this is still dismissing quite a big share of non-native English speaking women, as you can't be sure that those subtleties are well-known in the public. (This whole sub thread demonstrates this, by the way.)

picks_at_nits 12y ago

I used to feel the way you do, that “guys” is gender-neutral. However, I have encountered a large number of women who appear to be unaware that they are included when people say “you guys,” and they feel dismissed. I could lecture them about how wrong they are, but I could also use phrases that are not subject to misunderstanding. Things like this remind me of code. If I write something that is compiler-correct, but subject to misunderstanding, I could demand that people who find it confusing go read a few more books. Or I could write it to be read by my audience. With code, we’ve nearly universally decided that we write to be understood, and that the audience for our code is more important than whether we are “compiler correct.” JM2C, but that’s how I feel about the word “guys” being gender-neutral. It is dictionary-correct, but not audience-correct.

Jun8 12y ago
Good point, but I think you have it totally backwards: the usage in this case is audience-correct but not dictionary-correct. In fact, I think you guys is a good example where "language rules" have not caught up with usage. An important thing to understand is that language is not governed by a strict rules, such as compilers, it's based on a social contract, in fact Wittgenstein pushed this idea to its extreme by declaring that a word's meaning is its use (this idea is not without it's own problems, of course). I think the problem here is not that the people who object to the usage can understand the correct usage (in fact such usage is prevalent among the high-school crowd, which you can readily observe if you teach) but that they see it as sexist usage, e.g. similar to objecting to use of stewardess. I would suggest the correct approach here would give them the similar cases of y'all and you lot, not as a fry lecture but as a frank discussion.
tomjen3 12y ago
That is probably the best argument for it, but what alternative is there for a audience-correct gender neutral guys? Do we really have to borrow yeall?
- cstross 12y ago
  What's wrong with "people"? As in, "you people"? (Grammatically correct, non-colloquial, non-regional, and gender neutral.)