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Comment by foldr | Hacker News Reader

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I don't get it. Do you have a something against British people?

They’re not all men. I am British myself, FWIW.

In my mind, when people say "lads","guys" or "mankind", I just think "people". Does anyone really think they're litterally talking about men only? I feel like this kind of comment is just used to dismiss people.

I feel like this kind of comment is exactly the problem, isn’t it?

From what you’ve said - in your mind, addressing a group of people as “lads” makes no comment on their gender. Some people will definitely agree with that and not be bothered at all. But I don’t find it even slightly hard to imagine that if I were a woman in a group being addressed as “lads” that I might kinda bristle at at, as I know some people do.

It’s just weird to me that anybody’s first reaction to this sort of thing would be to double-down on “actually guys is gender-neutral” instead of just thinking “good point” and making a mental note for the future.

>I feel like this kind of comment is just used to dismiss people.

Almost certainly, these people hate working class language, but they can't say that out loud, so hide it behind false pretexts.

There’s not really anything to stop me saying ‘out loud’ on HN that I don’t like working class people, if that were something I wanted to say. In fact I think it would be rather less likely to get me downvoted than posting in support of gender inclusive language :)

I’d be intrigued to know who ‘these people’ are, though, as I am apparently one of them.

I thought this too, but apparently there is a whole palette of female versions for dude, guy, lad etc. [1]. I only heard “gals” before, never lasses or dudeens. And the “gals” also only occurred in spoken form, I’ve never read it anywhere (although I consume a lot of english media).

Maybe it’s because I’m not a native speaker. In Germany we have a huge gap between daily/ business communication and the communication from authorities. The latter don’t write „Sehr geehrte Studenten“, but „Sehr geehrte Student:innen“, so I suspect something similar is happening here too.

[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-feminine-word-for-lad

That’s why a “lads’ mag” is a magazine aimed at all genders, right? Not sure if you are British, but ‘lads’ has a much stronger gender connotation than ‘guys’ etc. There’s also a female counterpart of the word (lass).

American English speaker here. At least in the region where I live, "lads" is definitely gendered (plus uncommon and old-fashioned sounding and, applied to adults, a bit insulting), but "guys" isn't—which leads to friction when we interact with people from areas where, I gather, "guys" remains strongly gendered.

Fwiw I think being British is a good sign that you do have something against British people.

Also, at least in my social sphere, the gender-neutral "lads" has been popular for many years, alongside its male-only counterpart.

I have in my entire British lifetime literally never heard “lads” refer to a mixed-gender group of people, in the way that “guys” often is. Not to say it doesn’t exist, but I have just never encountered it at all.

Can you point to an example where a non-lad is utilizing the CoC to suppress opposition in this issue?

In the tweet, ‘lads’ refers to ‘the Go maintainers’ referenced in the first paragraph.

No, it doesn't. It refers to the subset of Go maintainers who are (allegedly) using the CoC to suppress opposition. I ask again: which specific Go-maintainers have both suppressed opposition with CoC and also are non-lads?

Anyone can read the tweet and decide for themselves. To me the intended reference is clear. The “Go maintainers” are accused of doing various things in the first paragraph and are then referred to in the second paragraph as ‘lads’; no salient subset is introduced as a potential discourse referent. In any case, my comment was obviously based on my own understanding of what was said.

> the Go maintainers are now claiming that objectors to Google's opt-out telemetry proposal on the Go compiler - yes, really - are arguing in bad faith and violating the Code of Conduct, and their comments are getting hidden.

> well done lads, you just keep doing that as hard as possible. i'm sure it'll work out great.

> The “Go maintainers” are accused of doing various things in the first paragraph and are then referred to in the second paragraph as ‘lads’; no salient subset is introduced as a potential discourse referent.

The accusation does not state that each and every Go maintainer is personally doing this. The accusation is targeted at "the Go maintainers" who are (allegedly) doing this.

The poster is vague about who exactly who they’re accusing of what. I can’t read their mind, so I can’t tell you if all the people they are thinking of are men or not. But I can tell you who they refer to in their tweet: the Go maintainers. If at any point they wish to make a more specific accusation, then the full resources of the English language are available to them.

As far as I know mer, beastfolk and daedra don't exist on Earth, so only men remain. :)

Uhhh... What does it tell you, exactly? That the OP is from the UK where "lads" is a common expression? Or that the OP is not politically aligned with leftist agenda, since they're using gendered expressions?

"Left-Right" is not a gender issue; it's a class issue.

I think the term "leftist" is used mainly in US political debate, to refer to whatever US conservatives don't like. For heaven's sake, they refer to Biden as a leftist.

Not sure what exactly you're trying to say. I asked if you opposed to the term "lads" because of UK reasons or political reasons. You could have just said political reasons - which is the answer to the question I posed - but no, you went off this wild tangent about how you oppose the term "leftist". Ok, you're on the left politically, that's why you strongly oppose using gendered term "lads" and also the term "leftist". Got it.

No; I didn't say anything about the term "lads". I don't oppose its use. I think you may have meant to reply to a different comment.

Sorry, I mixed you up with grandparent poster.

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