The "hey guys" issue bothers me. "Guys" is gender inclusive already. Defined as "people of either sex." [1]
I don't mind saying "ya'll", but policing the vernacular of an individual based on their sexual organs is fairly concerning.
I don't mind saying "ya'll", but policing the vernacular of an individual based on their sexual organs is fairly concerning.
I don't generally hassle people about such things, but I'm pretty darn sure there are people who are not me who think it is masculine and would hassle people about it.
I used to routinely use y'all online in a forum where I was intentionally emphasizing my Southern identity to more clearly distinguish between singular "you" and plural "you."
I've had a class in linguistics. I grew up in a bilingual home. I'm not uninformed about the fact that local colloquialisms exist, language is alive and evolving.
I think of "guys" and "you guys" as both masculine. I don't generally hassle people about such things.
Evidence that I don't generally hassle people about such things:
https://witnesstodestruction.blogspot.com/p/it-seems-my-sile...
I am unlikely to do so, in part because of negative experiences from a very toxic forum where I was treated like absolute shit.
Please note that I'm backing up someone else's claim about this being a phenomenon. I'm telling you they aren't making that up. There are Americans who view that as a masculine term. I'm actual living proof this is not a bullshit claim.
Sorry you are having such a big problem accepting that.
No need to make this personal with your last sentence.
Someone other than me noted that this is a phenomenon in some parts of the US. I posted to support that assertion. You have made multiple comments telling me I'm wrong about this when my claim is "I, personally, fit the profile" and you keep citing general usage.
I may be "wrong" by some metric or other to see it as masculine, but I'm living proof some Americans do, in fact, view it that way. You do appear to be having some trouble accepting that assertion, given that you basically are trying to tell me I'm wrong about my testimony about my opinion about the phrase, which really is quite baffling to me that anyone would try to tell me that.
The women I work with use this phrase probably more than anyone else I work with, so there’s not much practical for me to take away from this exchange.
I only mentioned my gender due to the larger context of the discussion. The implication is there are women who, like me, view "guys/you guys" as masculine and (unlike me) would make a big deal out of it. This seems pertinent to the piece being discussed and wasn't intended to suggest anything about women generally, much less women you personally know in meat space.
Can you confirm without ambiguity whether you are indeed talking about the same topic as me?
I lived in Mississippi for four years and they definitely took offense in the small town I was living in. The size of the community might also be relevant. I’m not an ethnolinguist, so can’t really comment on why it is or isn’t.
Take the map for what its worth, I guess. It doesn’t comment on what people think about the word itself, just how they don’t use it very much.
I'm just wondering if there are areas where "you guys" can't be used to refer to arbitrary-gender-makeup groups (as opposed to areas where it's just less common than other phrases accomplishing the same purpose). I haven't personally encountered such an area, but I accept and acknowledge that you have.
I do think this topic is complicated by the ease of conflating current usage (how is "you guys" used today?) with ideal usage (is this really a phrase whose usage we want to promote and accept in the future?). I personally have no problem making an effort to phase out "you guys." It's not something I feel attached to, and I can see that it carries unnecessary baggage.
Also just because it's generally been a non-gendered term doesn't mean prevailing opinion hasn't changed. There is a lot of talk around changing the norms in which masculine terms are considered the default. Both in english speaking languages and others (e.g. See LatinX)
"So tell me about the guy you married?"
And see how much sense that makes. "Guy" and "guys" as a catch-all is outmoded. As someone said, the plural reinforces the male-as-default.
Yes, words have meaning that change depending on context. That's how English works. It's a bit like how "man" can be used to mean the entirety of the human race, but "man" is in no way a gender neutral term.
To the same end, "guy" is considered by some to be quite gendered, and "guys" is often not, but even with the plural, asking a heterosexual man "how many guys have you slept with?", is often perceived very differently to asking "when did you guys get married?"
The problem here is that the first question, sans context, is going to be interpreted by a number of people to be exclusively male, and essentially never interpreted as exclusively female.
This isn't pedantry, it's just the way the word is perceived.
You admitted, yourself, that the word itself it gendered.
The fact that it is default-male and used as neutral is the entire argument.
"you guys" is two words, and when used together is entirely different than the single word "guys". Otherwise people would just use "guys".
Your argument seems to be that the inclusion of the 2nd-party plural "you" somehow removes the gendered nature of the word, which is not the case for this word or for any other.
I assume you believe that "boys" is gendered, and I assume you will admit that "you boys" is still gendered.
You admit that "guys" is gendered, but you will not admit that "you guys" is still gendered, without being able to provide any sort of evidence as to why.
The second case is identical to the first, the only difference being your specific idiolectical definition, which unfortunately is not generalisable to the English language as a whole.
These are accepted grammar rules. "you guys" as a second-person plural term is accepted as gender-neutral. "guys" in the third-person is not.
Arguing that the 2nd-person usage is not neutral is the new challenger position and you would need to provide the argument for why the accepted usage should change for the rest of us.
A survey of straight men. They're asked two questions in a randomized order.
A. "Is 'guys' gender neutral?"
and
B. "How many guys have you slept with?"
Care to make a wager on how often the (B,A) group will agree with you?