You talk about a “project”, implying a prescriptive change. But the transition of guy to gender-neutrality in some dialects is a spontaneous change, probably stimulated by lack of adequate vocabulary to reflect modern social sensibilities. It’s the old fart who won’t accept the change who’s advocating a “project” to proscribe it, not the other way around.
I was about to post the same as well, although I can’t think of a dialect. My guy feeling is it’s about equal to “hunk” but I might be wrong.
At any rate, moving beyond physical attraction and to the romantic, “boy/baby” and “girl/baby” seem to be used fairly gender-equally to describe an actual or potential intimate partner.
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Girl and Boy are used differently than Girls and Boys.
Saying, “Tell that girl, Cindy, to come up here” is very different than saying “Tell the girls in Accounts Payable they can go home an hour early today.” You don’t refer to a single adult man as a boy, but you can have a boys night out, or the boys in the machine shop.
Yes, “my baby” is certainly used by women to refer to a male partner. What I’m questioning is the use of “a babe” to describe an attractive man. I’ve never heard that, and although I’m older I would have thought it would have come up in TV/movies.
Unless the gender of the person working a given post is germane, why bother specifying it at all?
“I’ll check with the front desk.”
“I’ll ask the receptionist.”
“Tell HR they can go home an hour early, would you?”
Just drop the gender OUT–in a business context it’s almost always unnecessary, and if you need to specify a person, use their damned name.
“Check with Bob at the front desk.”
“Go see Ms. Smith in HR.”
“You’ll want to ask Cindy about that, she’s the one who handles it.”
The jobs aren’t gendered, so don’t bother specifying the gender of the person doing the job.
It depends on the context, I say.
That’s why I, a male, said no.
I recall a self-help drop-in program where one individual said something like "boy-girl-boy-girl-boy… " about a seating arrangement. An older woman (?) who was a supervisor at the time, chided her for calling grown women girls. Of course the context made it equivalent to “male-female-male-…”
I can just imagine how much louder the complaint had a male present said that…
Naturally, the older party was the very epitome of maturity. :rolleyes: She seemed to have problems with all men there, regardless of how excruciatingly compliant-versus- assertive or aggressive. The director was having an affair with her and would never have terminated her, no matter what, since he had a “must obey mama” complex. When a new director replaced him she realized that she no longer had the insurance against firing. She then solemnly promised to be compliant herself. But within a few months she was constantly after a man who had also been as supervisor (maybe still had been). He played it cool and said nothing himself but others relayed the abuse, and she was finally set free.
I don’t think these are great examples because (to my ears at least) these conjure up images of very young women who are referring to themselves. Not a bad question, though.
The only time I’ve ever heard it used in an inappropriate way is the example that’s already been given;in the Mad Men,1960s sense. And even then, I’m not sure if it was IRL or on some tv show.
I’m not usually too sensitive / observant about these kind of things but I work in a giant (southern) old boys’ (ha!) network so from now on I’ll keep my ears open and see if it crops up.
UK. Mid 30s, but it’s not new here.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a guy called a ‘hunk’ in anything other than a somewhat dismissive or sarcastic manner here, ‘Seen Emma’s new hunk? Brains like a bullock’. On the other hand, ‘Seen the new barman? Total babe’ would be utterly unremarkable.
The fact that deliberately trying to change the language, or add words as an ‘equal alternative’ just doesn’t work was kinda my point. Even an innocuous attempt to make a word gender neutral can really upset people.
It would be very nice if there was another word, but deciding there should be one is when you wind up with stuff like ‘wymyn’. And no one wants that.
Well I think it might depend on the context.
Sure, but setting aside your subsequent anecdote about how unbalanced this particular person was… there’s a linguistic phenomenon called hypercorrection, where an awareness of a frequent type of error may lead us to make a change even when it’s not warranted. I think there’s probably a socially-driven kind of hypercorrection at work here, and we may all struggle with it a bit as usage (along with social mores) evolves. But the fact that people may sometimes hypercorrect does not remotely invalidate the overall principle of correcting actual inappropriate usage. It’s like people whining “political correctness” when someone tells them to stop being a total jerk.
So… as with most things, the explanation is that I’m getting old!
Oh dear. Not just girl, but your girl. Somebody’s degree program overlooked socialization.
It’s incorrect to think that any word is inherently offensive.
I voted that yes, it’s offensive. But mostly because as an adult woman, whenever it’s being used towards you is usually meant in a demeaning way. Fwiw, I am a little sensitive about these things and not just this word. A coworker of mine (whom I never met nor spoke with) says “Hey sweetie” every time we pass each other in the hall and I absolutely loathe it. I don’t know his name, his department or anything about him other than he has an awful mustache. So I call him 'Pornstache Guy" to my other female coworkers and they all know who I’m talking about.
Is that Wittgenstein or Derrida?
QFT and because your post was being ignored.
I’m familiar with most (but not all) of those songs, and you may wish to reconsider the message of those songs if you want to view that as a convincing argument that “girl” is always/often a value-neutral term.
For example, “Hollaback Girl” is a song about a cheerleader who doesn’t want to be disrespected by people talking about her. In this context, the idea of being a hollaback girl is a BAD thing, which falls in line with the use of the term “girl” to diminish the female being talked about.
Also, “What a Girl Wants” is about someone who wants a man who will be the boss in a relationship. Again, this falls in line with the idea that the singer is a grown-up who makes her own choices.
Have you really not thought about this, OP?
But note that most of these uses are including the speaker, with the one exception - “Attaboy” - being the word specifically praising the person being referenced.
OTOH, (men) how would you feel if an authority figure called you “boy”? That’s almost invariably used to tell you that you are a child to them.