Hey guys.

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Hey guys (and girls), why do we use the word "guys" to refer to groups of people regardless of their gender? It just seems strange. You would never refer to a single female as a guy.

I have no idea. I guess it carries over from how some languages use the masculine form as the default gender.

I know in Spanish, there's different words for "they" for boys and girls-- "ellos" and "ellas"-- but if there's a group of people of mixed genders, you use the masculine form for them-- "ellos."

Also, if you think of back in the day, you might say "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun. Like, "each student must save his questions toward the end."

and you would not refer to a group of girls and boys as "girls".

in french, if you have 10000 women and one man, it's "ils" (plural, masculine).

sexism.

junior high school males sometimes avoid calling themselves "boys" by calling themselves "guys". they act like the word "boy" belittles them.

meanwhile, middle aged females often get called "girls", by both men and women.

and many middle aged females call themselves "girls".

it sounds sexist to use "guy" as the linguistic equivalent of "girl".

boy/girl, man/woman, male/female, ladies/gentlemen. guy/?

gal?

shortfatbalduglyman wrote:
guy/?


gal?
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linguistically it could be "gal".

but socially it will not be "gal".

"guy" sounds casual. "guy" does not denote an age. and, where i live, precious lil "people" use the word "guy" a lot.

"gal" sounds kind of young IMO. and "gal" sounds kind of demeaning.

Lol, I've seen several people refer to females as 'dude' in one on one conversation. Used to be that word was masculine only. If you think referring to a mixed group as 'guys' is weird refer to them as 'humans' (Sup humans?) and from the group's reaction you'll find that 'guys' is preferential.

That's a interpretation that's subjective to you and your experiences though.
I would have associated gal with sounding older, but for me that's more based on the archaic nature of the word.

English has a lexicon that is recorded only after it's spoken, it's fluid nature means that words come in and out of fashion, it's likely that is what happened to the antonym of 'guy'.

Even the gender of the word 'girl' has changed, a girl used to simply be a child (either male or female).

I wonder has the plural guys become gender neutered to deal with the old gals absence.

The word "gal" clearly comes from an alteration of the word "girl". So it's not really any better as an equivalent of "guy" than using "girl".

The use of gal was still recorded as the antonym for guy, whether it's parent was girl or not, it's still entitled to exist as a word in it's own right.

I think this complicates shortfatbalduglyman's perception of the lack of an antonym for guy is sexism. It appears to me to be the opposite; That the term gal has become archaic because of it's offensive usage.

Yeah. Also "man" used to refer to a human regardless of gender in Old English. There used to be a word for males with a prefix before the "man" similar to how the word "woman" has the prefix "wo-". The word "man" started referring to adult males and the old word with the prefix went obsolete.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BputcRHN6rg

This Pitbull feat T-Pain song has the lyric "you can be my girl I can be your man"

Is this line sexist? He's using "girl" and "man" as equivalents instead of using "woman" and "man", or "girl" and "boy".

Perhaps boy doesn't rhyme with the next/previous line, and the use of the extra syllable in 'woman' throws the meter off. Truth be told, lyrics/libretto/poetry are more about the musical qualities of the line than the concreteness of the words used.

I've always thought the use of 'guys' in this all-embracing sense was an American thing, though it wouldn't surprise me if it were to become established in the UK (after all, we now apparently have 'proms' for school-leavers and the police are occasionally referred to as 'the feds', lol). It does still sound very strange to me though: if I were to address a mixed-gender group, I'd probably say 'you lot', or in a more formal situation 'ladies and gentlemen'. In the hippy period of the late 60s, one would also hear 'people' used in this context, eg "Come on now, people...".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BputcRHN6rg

This Pitbull feat T-Pain song has the lyric "you can be my girl I can be your man"

Is this line sexist? He's using "girl" and "man" as equivalents instead of using "woman" and "man", or "girl" and "boy".

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yes i think it is sexist.

but many people do not find it sexist.

oh well who cares.

who am i?

i am nobody. i am nothing.

i do not have legal authority. i do not have moral authority.

i do not have rights or emotions.

besides, what if it is sexist, then what?

what if it were not sexist, then what?

quite frankly sometimes i wonder if anything matters.

when i was in undergrad, 18-24, i passive aggressively tolerated when someone said "guys and girls" something else like that. and i told myself that what they said was legal. and even if it were illegal, i could only (1) tattle to 911 or (2) take out a civil lawsuit. and both options take a lot of energy and time. the second option takes a lot of money too. and then i told myself "pick your battles".

which were decent excuses. reasons. at the time.

but quite frankly, it's more that it shows the speaker's attitude. "guys and girls".

word selection shows prejudices and biases. even if the words are not official derogatory.

but oh well whatever.

besides, what if i were to have corrected someone. tell them to just say "boys and girls" or "men and women". no "guys and girls". then what? they either (1) do what they were doing more often, to annoy me. (2) ignore me, and do it at the same rate (3) do it less.

and quite frankly. seriously i find it hard to imagine someone would take (3) just as a personal favor to be.

b/c they did not care about me that much.

but whatever. what if they did (3), then what? that is just one person. what is so great about them?

so the older i get the more reserved. socially withdrawn i get.

besides, who cares what i think?

Please, use "you all" instead.

I like it when people say, "Hey guys!" I'd rather be called a guy than a lady. Those here who know my situation understand why.