“Waitress” and “actress” are diminutive forms of the original “waiter” and “actor”.
One thing is that “guys” is somewhat informal. It’s not that far off from terms like “buds” and “dudes”. It should really only be used with people who you already have a close relationship with. A waiter should probably use something more formal, like “everybody”. That avoids any issue with gender, as well as any issue with the customers not appreciating the waiter assuming a casual level of familiarity. If you’re with a group of friends, you have that level of familiarity, so you can use casual terms to refer to the group. But in that case, you should have a pretty good idea if the group is okay with being called “guys”. Basically, if you are close enough with a group to call them “guys”, you should know enough about them to know that they won’t be offended by being referred to as guys. But if you’re talking to a group where you don’t really know everyone at that level, don’t use words that are so informal.
I too dislike hearing women called “females”. There are some circumstances where it makes sense, such as discussing biological sex, for instance, but I don’t often have conversations that focus on that. Or discussing an animal.
Hearing “females” swapped in for “women” gives a very incel vibe for me. As if we are breeding stock or something. A thing to be acquired.
But I’m also a woman who does use “guys” in a mostly gender -free way, with exceptions already mentioned. Hey guys, I’m getting pizza, what kind of toppings you want? (Genderless)
I do not understand guys who think making more than his partner is embarrassing! (Gendered)
This literally made my head explode.
Now I need a new keyboard, figuratively speaking.
I’ve seen no convincing evidence that is the case. However, even if true, it has now evolved to be a perfectly acceptable inclusive address.
Well, they’re included. And I think that is the most common use of the term. (Fur-babies, for anybody who’s losing track.)
You’ve never encountered somebody using “guys” for a mixed group of people?
(I’ll leave the word “large” out of it, because I don’t think this thread needs a discussion about exactly how many people are required to make a group of them “large”.)
Plenty of people are ticked off at something without feeling that this makes them “victims”.
Using language that makes it seem as if the complainants are whimpering in a corner when what they actually are is pissed off or, often, just mildly annoyed seems to me to be a way of minimizing the complainants. It’s very often not “poor me!” It’s “Damn it, would you cut that out?”
(Note: I don’t mean to imply that people who are genuinely victims of serious crimes are all whimpering in corners saying “poor me”, either; or for that matter that they’re not entitled to if they are. I’m discussing the implications of saying that anyone objecting to anything must have a “victim syndrome”.)
That’s the reverse phenomenon. Calling men “actors” and women “actresses” was a way of singling out the women as a special case, while the men were considered the normal.
And what I’ve seen recently instead of either “waiters” or “waitresses” has mostly been “servers”.
I hope not!
Though I suspect you did that on purpose.
D’oh! I forgot that this was started by a woman! So, yes at least one woman is genuinely offended.
So some unspecified subset of women is offended by what the majority of folk (and usage guides) believe is a perfectly acceptable use of the word “guys.” Is the response for everyone to change their usage to make the offended feel better? Or for the offended to just deal with it? I’m not entirely sure.
There is no shortage of things that bother me to varying extents. I rarely imagine that society is going to change in order to ease my mind.
I understand that it would be relatively easy to purge the word “guys” from my speaking. But I’m not entirely sure I care to make the effort to be so careful of my casual speech. At this point, we are quite a ways from the N-word, oriental, ethnic slurs… I think I might personally feel that if someone gets offended by the use of the word “guys”, maybe they should just get over it.
I’m honestly turning this around in my mind - not trying to offend. As a general rule, I prefer not to offend people. But some people get offended over some pretty minor shit. And every time someone claims to be offended by something awfully innocuous, I’m not sure I take that as marching orders to try to change my speech/behavior.
If the percentage of women offended by the use of the word guys is “unspecified” how can you conclude that “the majority of folk” believe it is “perfectly acceptable”? Especially since you have not even touched on the percentage of men offended by referring to a mixed group as guys.
Really? I think it is vanishingly small, but I’m honestly interested in what percentage of men you think fall into this group?
And in my first post, I described being told by a bunch of women from Texas that they were offended.
I think it is safe to conclude that some women object to the use of “guys” as a non-gendered plural. This is completely alien to me, and as a woman, I cheerfully state that you are welcome to refer to any group I’m in as “guys.”
To be honest, I’m surprised Johanna is offended by the term, because she’s a linguist, and knows all about (or I assume she does) the role of context in language. While English is generally considered a low-context language, it’s not context-free: consider the examples above of @TroutMan and @Flightless.
But, as I am aware that some people don’t like it, I do my best to eliminate it from my speech, using “y’all” or “folks,” both of which sound fine to me. It’s hard, though, because I grew up hearing and using “guys” in a gender-neutral fashion, so weeding it out of my casual speech requires a level of filtering I’m not always up to. If I inadvertently use “guys” to people like Johanna, I hope they can forgive me and understand that it absolutely did not indicate even the tiniest smidgen of derogatory intent based on gender.
I am not sure. I am offended by lack of inclusion or erasure of any number of groups I don’t happen to belong to. I don’t see how this is different. It is not outright discrimination. It does seem wrong and offensive to me.
I’m a woman and can’t think of too many things that I care less about - for myself.
I grew up using, and continue to use, “dude” with anyone I’m even marginally friendly with - male or female.
When I worked as a waitress (yes, it was long enough ago that that was still the term), older customers were always “ladies” , “gentlemen” , or “folks” for mixed groups. Younger people, say , under 25ish, were “guys”. To me it’s all about context.
No, they are gender-differentiating terms, but not diminutives. The shift in language toward using “waiter” (or wait staff) and “actor” for everyone is, I believe, an attempt to signal that we needn’t express any amazement that women also participate in these occupations.
This reminds me that I recently said that Johanna was my “linguistics hero.” Personally I don’t think we need the word “heroine,” as a person of any gender can be brave. But Johanna, you can definitely be my “linguistics heroine” if you prefer, and apologies if my use of language grated.
You realize that the words waiter, actor, and hero have always been gender-neutral, right? The existence of female-specific alternatives doesn’t make them masculine.
Actually, no, I was not aware of that. I’m not disagreeing, just saying that while growing up I thought that it was considered more correct to differentiate by gender.
I am too…when that is actually what is happening. Which is not this.
Several animal words can be either gendered or neutral, depending on context. For instance, a male goose is a gander, and a female goose is a goose.
You don’t have to scroll at all. The title of the thread is one example.
And people used to say that “he” was gender-neutral, despite the existence of a female-specific alternative.
Obviously, I disagree.
I don’t know how many of something you need before you have a “large” group, but I do know that you need at least a large number of grains to make a heap of sand.