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Comment by fenomas | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you about TFA, but:

> the literal definition of guys is: Persons of either sex

I'm no culture warrior, but this isn't accurate at all. That's a definition, but it's not the usual one - ask someone "how many guys have you slept with?" and see how they interpret it.

To me, "guys" is the rhetorical equivalent of a code smell. There are cases where is obviously innocuous, like saying "hey you guys" to a mixed group of peers. But when the CEO says "I want to congratulate the guys on team xyz" in reference to a team with one woman... at minimum we can say his intent is ambiguous.

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You're right about everything. But I'd argue if we're going to dedicate time to 'guys', we should no less have a meeting about every single other possible ambiguity that hardly matters, and try to somehow encourage inconvenient changes to people's natural vocabularies.

Similarly to the article above, during the meeting, no alternative was suggested. I like the word 'guys' for its casualness. If you're at risk of being perceived as somewhat authoritative, it can help induce a more casual tone. I thought about 'peeps' but that's too casual (and frankly weird, in a business setting). 'Everyone' is far too sterile. 'Ladies and gentlemen' is weird. 'All' (e.g. 'hi all') is also impersonal.

Workplaces could over-analyse and pick about minutiae all day long, and how productive is that? I reasoned that if we are going to pick about minutiae, then it should at least be the worst of the worst offences, and should be accompanied with some alternatives or solutions. Not just "Don't do <x> because I said so" type of thing.

In my experience y’all works as a perfect alternative to “you guys”, even as a non-Southerner myself. After my initial discomfort using it it became quite natural.

I am not a “y’all”, and I’m not a “folk”. If you use either of these terms to refer to a group that includes me or potentially could include me I will interpret it as a deliberate insult.

Sure, I follow. FWIW, every time I've seen this discussed in a corporate context there was always a suggested alternative, and it was always "folks".

Folks, y'all, team, friends, listeners/readers, people, <title>s.

Curiously the words you list for that usage are now tell tale signs of language policing.

It's almost as revealing as "Yikes, there's a lot of issues to unpack there. Top of mind is the absence of guardrails around inappropriate language and metaphor."

Quite how we've reached the point where political persuasions are linguistically distinct I have no idea.

Come on. You can’t honestly tell me that “folks” or “y’all” are signs of language policing. I think many Southerners would vehemently disagree with you.

If they're not from an actual southerner they absolutely are.

Just look at how their usage is promoted in this thread to defeat supposed evils elsewhere in the language.

Perhaps the solution then should be to replace “y’all” with the northern regional equivalents of “youse” or even “yinz.” Would you feel happier about that?

The other revealing thing is the way you people sound like you're in therapy sessions, always trying to frame things with emotive questions.

There's actually nothing wrong with the existing generally used words.

What do you mean by “you people?” Are these people in the room with you right now?

You're so endearing, it's really going to win me over to your side of the argument.

What argument do you presume I’m advancing? Perhaps your tendency to see everything as a competition is why you view each conversation as a psychoanalysis evaluation.

> What argument do you presume I’m advancing?

I'd be legitimately surprised if you know at this point.

That’s my secret, Captain. I never have any arguments.

It’s funny how you think you’re not doing the exact same thing you’re accusing others of doing: policing language.

I don't police, I merely judge based on usage.

I’m sorry you’re offended by people trying to be nice to others by avoiding language they don’t appreciate. I promise nobody is gonna force you to do the same.

I didn’t say I was offended, because I am not.

What I said is it is a sign of language policing, and that means a sign of the sort of people that like to deliberately misinterpret things so they get to be offended and virtue signal about the response. Normal people, unlike myself, simply shut up as a defence mechanism.

You've walked into a pretty innocuous conversation here, and tried to start a culture-war argument even though nobody present has actually taken the position you want to argue against. Please consider not doing that in the future.

I think you missed that that is what the posted article did.

There was nothing in your comment subtle enough to miss, or that I haven't seen a hundred times in threads like this, and my reply stands.

I honestly have no idea what you're on about. You are projecting things into the statement which it does not say.

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