The ascent of "guy" (1999)(muse.jhu.edu)
muse.jhu.edu
The ascent of "guy" (1999)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/2705
96 comments
Now that I am rambling about etymology, another cool thing: We spell and say the plural of "wife" as "wives". This is because of how the voiced "e" changed the pronunciation of the unvoiced "f" to a voiced "v". ("v" and "f" are the same sound with the only difference being if you are engaging your vocal folds or not. Same with "z" and "s", "b" and "p", and some others).
The same happened with "knife" and "knives", and the pronunciation of "path" vs "paths" (the "s" sound is voiced, and caused the "th" to be voiced as well).
The same happened with "knife" and "knives", and the pronunciation of "path" vs "paths" (the "s" sound is voiced, and caused the "th" to be voiced as well).
Though curiously not 'roof', despite all being Germanically rooted.
Are you saying not "rooves" in spelling, or in pronunciation, or both? I spell it "roofs" but pronounce it "rooves". With "dwarfs" and "dwarves", it depends on context for both spelling and pronunciation I think.
It's probably due to what the parent said--the letters f and v were allophones in OE. Same reason why they are pronounced the same in German.
Or “dwarf”, aside from Tolkien.
Tolkien actually wanted for the pural of "dwarf" to be "dwerrows", but compromised to the neutral "dwarves".
My favorite part is where Grendel's mother is referred to as an "aglæc-wif", which could mean "monster-woman" or maybe just "fearsome woman". Whatever the case she was even more fearsome than her son, and I like formidable female villains.
The word wer lives on to this day, as part of werewolf.
The word wer lives on to this day, as part of werewolf.
“Wer” is also where our word “werewolf” comes from; presumably a female werewolf would be a “wifewolf”?
And sprecan is even closer sounding to the Dutch "spreken" which retained the long middle /e/ and /k/.
Imagine if it was another name that became generic, like “Steve” or “Chad” instead of “Guy”.
“He’s a nice Steve.” “Ted is an awesome Chad!”
“He’s a nice Steve.” “Ted is an awesome Chad!”
No need to imagine. There are several other names that have already become generic. In Australia women can be referred to as Sheilas. In Ireland they can be called Colleens.
"Cailín" is Irish for "girl".
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/cail%C3%ADn
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/cail%C3%ADn
Well if another name had become generic long ago, it would be familiar usage and not surprising at all. You would have grown up with it, and think it normal.
When I'm the only person in the cafe, but the barista still wants to know my name for the order, I do a slow pan looking left, then right, then back to center, and say: "Guy".
SBF using "guys" to refer to FTX employees
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/yr8q57/ther...
I like the term fellow. Like, “fellow feeling” or “hey, fellows!” While mostly used for refer to men, it’s originally gender neutral and has a nice vibe about it.
Hello, fellow!
Hello, fellow!
You know, I'm not sure if you're down to hear this, but chances are if you upvoted this article, you're a man upvoting an article by a man, and there's a bunch of men in the comments talking about how inoffensive they find the word "guys" when applied to groups. And, these men are probably downvoting comments that suggest that they may be the sensitive ones, who should just alter their language slightly, like they do routinely when new buzzwords and tools and techniques come up in their jobs.
Is this what an echo chamber looks like?
Is this what an echo chamber looks like?
On the contrary, you need an echo chamber in order to push this idea. Most people are tired of being lectured on what's offensive/not inclusive and constantly walking on eggshells, and it's beginning to show. The Buzzfeed era is over.
> Most people are tired of being lectured on what's offensive/not inclusive and constantly walking on eggshells, and it's beginning to show
The first time I heard this from the political right was about “political correctness” when I was in grade school nearly 40 years ago.
I don't see any evidence that it is any more true now than it was then.
The first time I heard this from the political right was about “political correctness” when I was in grade school nearly 40 years ago.
I don't see any evidence that it is any more true now than it was then.
Autres temps, autres moeurs. It's 2022, and high time to retire gendered language in mixed-gender contexts. No "guys", no "guys and gals", no "ladies and gentlemen". Gender is a spectrum, not a binary, and there are plenty of neutral expressions you can use like "beautiful people" or "fellow space travelers". The safety of the marginalized trumps the comfort of the privileged. Those tired of being lectured can deal with the change; those marginalized by erasure of their identity by the very language they speak must fight harder to be included in the face of such erasure,
Why don't we just redefine guys to be gender neutral, instead of dropping it entirely? It's not like it has a problematic history.
The GP was being sardonic, but if you spend a little while in twitter and discord and you'll find some people out there really are a few cards shy of a full deck. The problem is that they are also the loudest.
Truth be told, I think they always existed but the internet has enabled them to display and strengthen their lunacy.
Lol, this is 10/10 satire. The scary part is that many lunatics think this way unironically. Books will be written about this time in history.
> Books will be written about this time in history.
Could you just read this again and think about it a little? Amazing zinger there.
Could you just read this again and think about it a little? Amazing zinger there.
"Beautiful people" is a horribly discriminative term. It excludes everyone who isn't in line with unrealistic modern Western beauty standards, and makes anyone who's ever been called "ugly" or had a comment made about their appearance feel shut out of the conversation.
"Fellow space travelers" is similarly exclusionary. Did you consider at all that the vast majority of people who have ever been to space have been rich white men? Not to mention the extremely problematic imperialistic undertones of the entire American space program. Anyone who isn't from a privileged background is again ostracized by your words.
"Fellow space travelers" is similarly exclusionary. Did you consider at all that the vast majority of people who have ever been to space have been rich white men? Not to mention the extremely problematic imperialistic undertones of the entire American space program. Anyone who isn't from a privileged background is again ostracized by your words.
When I read “beautiful people” I understood it in the sense of the underlying beauty of the fact that we are somehow sentient beings in a universe of chaos and entropy.
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> Most people are tired of being lectured on what's offensive/not inclusive
Conservatives have been saying this forever, and its not coming true. They said it about gay slurs and racism and have been saying it forever about sexism. They're born to lose and can't stop complaining about how Being Appropriate at Work is so hard These Days.
Conservatives have been saying this forever, and its not coming true. They said it about gay slurs and racism and have been saying it forever about sexism. They're born to lose and can't stop complaining about how Being Appropriate at Work is so hard These Days.
No, it's not only definitely coming true, it's been happening for a while now and it's becoming mainstream. Here's a very neutral video on the topic: https://youtu.be/fKBLn--BBdg.
I think the peak was around the late 2010s.
Nah, conservatives have thought this forever and they probably listened to voices that complained about women being too into "hookup culture" and "cancelling" also. This channel's bias is clear. No new news here. This echo chamber y'all have made for yourselves is airtight.
It seems that some people take societal change as an attack on who they are as a person.
Calling a mixed group "guys" isn't that big of a deal. But considering how computer science skews heavily towards men, it sounds tone deaf to double down when asked not do it. Because you'll have teams with one or two women for a dozen men, and because these women have been in groups with similar women/men ratios their whole careers, we need to make extra efforts to make sure they feel included.
It's not going to fix the gender disparity on its own. It's just a small effort to show some good will.
This is not a good hill to die on. I expected a more nuanced take on Hacker News.
Calling a mixed group "guys" isn't that big of a deal. But considering how computer science skews heavily towards men, it sounds tone deaf to double down when asked not do it. Because you'll have teams with one or two women for a dozen men, and because these women have been in groups with similar women/men ratios their whole careers, we need to make extra efforts to make sure they feel included.
It's not going to fix the gender disparity on its own. It's just a small effort to show some good will.
This is not a good hill to die on. I expected a more nuanced take on Hacker News.
Thx for saying it!
ywnbaw
And your favorite hategrooming site will be blackholed by Tier 1s, kiwi.
that lasted for about two days. another great victory for the 41%
Rent free!
To start the discussion off on a thorny point: I recently got “called out” on addressing a group of people as “guys” on account of the interpretation that I’m assuming a single gender. This really frustrated me, and seemed extremely uncalled for. I can remember teachers in school say “cmon guys settle down now” to refer to their co-ed classrooms.
Is there any response I could give to this out-of-the-blue criticism besides quietly judging the requester and moving on? I make very little apology for using language in this way, and I was surprised it was interpreted in the most inflammatory way possible.
Is there any response I could give to this out-of-the-blue criticism besides quietly judging the requester and moving on? I make very little apology for using language in this way, and I was surprised it was interpreted in the most inflammatory way possible.
They are trying to get power over you. Best to just shrug and ignore, making as little of it as possible. Trolls grow in power the more you feed them - so take it the same as it someone posts a troll comment in reply to a forum post. Just ignore
Reminds me of my coworker who used to come in every day and greet our all-male office with "morning ladies!"
This soon stopped just before our first female colleague joined. Our boss pulled us all in to a meeting to inform us that we now have to use gender-neutral terms like "folks" and "peeps", and there was to be no more joking around gendered forms of address. What a spoilsport.
This soon stopped just before our first female colleague joined. Our boss pulled us all in to a meeting to inform us that we now have to use gender-neutral terms like "folks" and "peeps", and there was to be no more joking around gendered forms of address. What a spoilsport.
There are many possible responses, it depends what your goal is. If you just care about making your audience comfortable, you can say "my bad, folks" and then move on and forget about it forever. If you want to understand what the issue could possibly be, you could approach that person afterwards and ask them why they called you out and why they don't want to be referred to as a "guy". If you only care about being right, you could argue with them on the spot.
The place at worked at one job ago had a Slack bot set up so that if you said "guys" in any public channel, it would spit out a message like "Maybe use different word instead?"
It was about as efffective and intelligent as it sounds. /s
It was about as efffective and intelligent as it sounds. /s
> it was about as effective and intelligent as it sounds. /s
fascinated by this "/s"
fascinated by this "/s"
I don’t think such an uncharitable interpretation deserves any response.
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I’ve always considered it a non gendered term of endearment. As a reference to how children would dress up as Guy Fawkes at parades in the UK.
You didn’t use the word incorrectly. They are just an asshole.
“Guys” as a collective noun has no sex/gender. It’s as gendered as “y’all”. Words can have different meanings.
Fuck those people.
“Guys” as a collective noun has no sex/gender. It’s as gendered as “y’all”. Words can have different meanings.
Fuck those people.
"Please don't fulminate."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
MartinCron(5)
You should have instantly corrected yourself to "guys and communist fifthcolumnists" and carried on.
welcome to the 21st century. you may want to reply with an even bigger virtue signal
Have you considered that you may be wrong?
Have you considered using a handle that isn't a derogatory term?
It's my heritage, and a completely irrelevant topic.
The person who called you out sounds like a loser who spends too much time in their weirdo bubble online or in some sort of extreme activist community in person. This sort of thing has been leaking out into the rest of society lately and when it does we should ridicule it and the people who hold those beliefs. Commence the downvotes.
I don't understand why people are so sensitive these days!
Just don't use "guys" and move on. Easy.
Just don't use "guys" and move on. Easy.
Or just use "guys" and move on. The move on is the important part.
Absolutely, which is why it's so funny that the commenter here is using their "frustration" and the "uncalled for" nature of their reaction to justify wanting to continue to use "guys". This guy should just drop it and move on, easy. Cut the sensitivity out and just, move on.
[deleted]
People choosing to be (or just acting, you can't tell for sure) over inconsequential word choices never ceases to amaze.
Yeah some men are so sensitive over this that they'll literally rush out to write "academic" papers about it! Just get over it, dude.
tomlockwood(1)
Just to complicate things:
One usage that is definitely single-sex is, one male might say to another male,
"Hi guy, how ya doin'?"
"OK, guy, let me tell you how to do this."
But he'd never say that to a female.
However, it wouldn't be that unusual to say to a whole group of women, whether one is male OR female,
"Hi guys, let's get started."
One usage that is definitely single-sex is, one male might say to another male,
"Hi guy, how ya doin'?"
"OK, guy, let me tell you how to do this."
But he'd never say that to a female.
However, it wouldn't be that unusual to say to a whole group of women, whether one is male OR female,
"Hi guys, let's get started."
'a female' is the reverse of what pisses me of with overly 'SJW' descriptions of 'woman X', where X is 'coder' or whatever.
'Female' is the adjective; 'woman' is the noun. It's neither difficult nor rude.
We manage it with 'male' and 'man' without controversy.
'Female' is the adjective; 'woman' is the noun. It's neither difficult nor rude.
We manage it with 'male' and 'man' without controversy.
It's just being used to coerce a clinical reading, like some sort of wildlife observer, relax. "The female builds her nest in the late summer..."
Adjectives and nouns are slippery things, and compound nouns exist besides.
FWIW, a quick corpus search of COCA[1] for `DET female VERB` [(a|the) female (eats|plays|chooses...)] yields 63 total attestations in the corpus (59 unique).
The same with `male` yields 65 (57 unique).
So it's a thing that happens in English.
1 https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/
Adjectives and nouns are slippery things, and compound nouns exist besides.
FWIW, a quick corpus search of COCA[1] for `DET female VERB` [(a|the) female (eats|plays|chooses...)] yields 63 total attestations in the corpus (59 unique).
The same with `male` yields 65 (57 unique).
So it's a thing that happens in English.
1 https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/
> It's just being used to coerce a clinical reading, like some sort of wildlife observer, relax. "The female builds her nest in the late summer..."
That's an abbreviation of 'the female of the species' which is essentially writing out a definition of 'woman' except for the given species, since a woman is a human and there probably generally isn't an equivalent (and if there is it won't be widely known) for most species.
Other than to humorous effect (Wodehouse was fond of it) it is redundant and not useful for describing humans. The female of the human species is called a woman, and this is widely known.
> relax
> So it's a thing that happens in English.
I don't have to like it.
Using the wrong their/they're/there is also 'a thing that happens in English', if by English we mean the words of people aiming to use it.
That's an abbreviation of 'the female of the species' which is essentially writing out a definition of 'woman' except for the given species, since a woman is a human and there probably generally isn't an equivalent (and if there is it won't be widely known) for most species.
Other than to humorous effect (Wodehouse was fond of it) it is redundant and not useful for describing humans. The female of the human species is called a woman, and this is widely known.
> relax
> So it's a thing that happens in English.
I don't have to like it.
Using the wrong their/they're/there is also 'a thing that happens in English', if by English we mean the words of people aiming to use it.
> That's an abbreviation of 'the female of the species' which is essentially
An interesting intuition, do you have anything to back it up?
> I don't have to like it.
Now that I empathize with, but I don't think there's much to be done in this case.
An interesting intuition, do you have anything to back it up?
> I don't have to like it.
Now that I empathize with, but I don't think there's much to be done in this case.
> An interesting intuition, do you have anything to back it up?
It (unlike the shortening) is grammatical, and a common enough phrase to have a Wikipedia disambiguation page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Female_of_the_Species
It (unlike the shortening) is grammatical, and a common enough phrase to have a Wikipedia disambiguation page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Female_of_the_Species
Sure, do you have anything to back up your intuition that this is just a shortening of one phrase? Where would you find this 'shortening' acceptable, and where would you not?
"A female will find multiple mates in spring" "The male burrows deep into the ground in the winter and begins to hibernate"
These seem fine to me and are not strict shortenings of "The Female of the Species".
"A female will find multiple mates in spring" "The male burrows deep into the ground in the winter and begins to hibernate"
These seem fine to me and are not strict shortenings of "The Female of the Species".
I'm apparently in a minority here, but I've only known one guy to use it as a term of address (vs. how I just used it), and he notably did it with everyone, a la "dude" (so much that "Guy" became his nickname).
Chief, on the other hand, I've only heard directed at males.
Chief, on the other hand, I've only heard directed at males.
I don't know about the rest of the country, but in ND and MN everyone uses "guys" to refer to any gendered group of people
Yeah, I grew up in PA and that's pretty common there, but when talking to one person, it's usually "Hey dude" or "Hey man" (also mostly gender-agnostic)
Only that one guy would use it for one person, sometimes similar to whatchamacallit: "Guy! Whaddareya doin up there?!" "C'mon, guy! We're gonna be late!" "Any of you guys see my toolbox? Did guy take it again?" (Which guy, man? Dude, there's like ten guys here. Bro, you gotta be more specific.)
Only that one guy would use it for one person, sometimes similar to whatchamacallit: "Guy! Whaddareya doin up there?!" "C'mon, guy! We're gonna be late!" "Any of you guys see my toolbox? Did guy take it again?" (Which guy, man? Dude, there's like ten guys here. Bro, you gotta be more specific.)
I think this is really interesting - I've heard "guys" used to address a group of mixed genders ("how are you guys?") but it sounds much more gendered when used to refer to a group ("how many guys are in there?" or even "are you looking for those guys?").
Perhaps because addressing people comes with more implications and possible angles for communication with those people. So "guys" fits the bill for one desired nuance that became more popular in culture (the "laid back" nuances the article mentions). Previous generations were a lot more formal.
Obliviousness doesn't make it right.
I think the latter most became gender neutral because of the entry cry of the public television show “Three, Two, One Contact” in which a woman yelled “Hey You Guys” in what was clearly and inclusive manner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-2-1_Contact
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-2-1_Contact
Surely you mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company
The development of the modern word "woman" is interesting. It descends from the word combination "wif" + "man". The "i" gradually changed to an "o". However the plural (women) retains the original "i" sound. The word "wif" on its own changed to our modern word "wife"[2].
A lot of our modern words which contain "-man" or "man-" in them developed in Old English. The word "mankind" for instance is present in Beowulf. It is spelled "manna cynnes" or "mancynn".
One last note, the word "wer" predates the English language. It dates back to Proto-Indo-European, and shows up in many different languages. For example in Latin it is "vir"
If you want a Beowulf side-by-side translation: https://heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-text.html
[1] Cool to see the word "sprecan" and it's similarity to modern German "sprechen".
[2] Which has always made me wonder about the phrase "I pronounce you man and wife". What meanings of "man" and "wife" were common when that phrase originated.