Eh, it is not really different from other plurals in this regard. For example one might say a catering event has 100 waiters. Depending on convention you could also write waiters/waitresses or waitrx or service personal or... Used generically it is gender neutral, while non-generically it is not.

I think thoughtful people say wait staff not waiters in that example.

I am not on the side of turning technical terms like master/slave male/female blacklist/whitelist into ridiculous manufactured crimes, but that particular example doesn't actually work I think.

> I think thoughtful people

That is a pretty backhanded euphemism....

Anyways, I thought "service personnel" already covered that example, but yes "staff" might be more common. Anyways, the point was that these are common conventions and all are intended as gender neutral -- so insulting people for using a specific one seems very misguided.

It was quite literal and not an insult or intended as one. When I hear people who consider their words, that is the kind of phrase I hear in foodservice circles. If you were insulted, perhaps it only implies you think you are not thoughtful? When I insult someone, it isn't ambiguous.

> you could also write waiters/waitresses

The Hofstadter essay kens linked to, from 1985, goes into this exact point, though he uses "waitron" instead of "waitrx".

> it is not really different from other plurals in this regard

Some yes, some no. Few now say "authoress" or "manageress", as a counter-example. And I don't think anyone ever used "bank telleress" instead of "bank teller."

That said, it seems you agree with me that "guys" is not a wholly gender-neutral term, yes?

The WaPo article author's argument seems to be that since "you guys" is used as a gender-neutral second person plural [1], "guys" is no longer a gendered word.

While I disagree. And gave counter-examples.

The Hofstadter essay kens linked to, more specifically at https://archive.org/details/MetamagicalThemas/page/n153/mode... , makes exactly the same point, again this is from 1985:

> One of my pet peeves is the currently popular usage of the word "guys". You often hear a group of people described as "guys", even when that group includes women. In fact, it is quite common to hear women addressing a group of other women as "you guys". This strikes me as very strange. However, when I have asked some people about it, they have adamantly maintained that, when in the plural, the word "guy" has completely lost all traces of masculinity. I was arguing with one woman about this, and she kept on saying, "It may have retained some male flavor for you, but it has none in most people's usage." I wasn't convinced, but nothing I could think of to say would budge her from her position. However, fortune proved to be on my side, because, in a last-ditch attempt to convince me, she said, "Why, I've even heard guys use it to refer to a bunch of women!" Only after saying it did she realize that she had just unwittingly undermined her own claim.

[1] the article is dreadfully lacking in examples, but I think 'Hey guys' as an attention grabber fits into the same category as second person plural.

For me it falls under local dialect and if people tell me that it is gender neutral, I believe them. Same as people using "literally" or "ironically" incorrectly; if enough people use words in a certain way, the words change their meaning. That is just how English works. So the essay kinda reads to me as "old man yelling at clouds".

> Authoress

English is a bit weird in that it only does this for certain occupations, e.g. actor or waiter but not for example writers (at least to my knowledge). So if I read "a large group of writers" I would presume that is meant as gender neutral and would be completely fine with it. Again the point being that writxs or similar might be another convention, but that does not make people using "writers" "unthoughtful" or whatever other insult the above poster wants to use.

Sure. The WaPo article is a call to make "guys" be gender neutral.

However, kgwgk's comment appears to be that "guys" now is gender neutral.

And it demonstrably has widespread non-gender-neutral uses.

Since you want to use the descriptive approach, if enough people think that "guys" is a microaggression, then doesn't that make it so?

> comment appears to be

No, not quite.

> it demonstrably has

Again, no. The claim was that for large groups it is used as gender neutral, for small groups it is not necessarily neutral. No contradiction and very common for other words as in the examples above.

> If enough people think that

No, wrong side. The people saying words give them meaning, not the people misunderstanding them.

> The claim was that for large groups it is used as gender neutral, for small groups it is not necessarily neutral.

To be fully correct, the author says "second person plural", which includes small groups.

> The claim was that for large groups it is used as gender neutral

As the Hofstadter essay points out, the claim was also that "man" for large groups was gender neutral. Except of course it often wasn't - and Hofstadter gives counter-examples.

But the overall point is the "microagression" concerning "guy" has been around for decades. It's not a new thing. It's certainly not part of an existential threat to doing good science.

> The people saying words give them meaning, not the people misunderstanding them.

That's ... okay, so you're saying the people who hear the implied/default maleness in "guy" never actually say the word "guy" in their own conversations? Even to refer only to males?

Because that's the only way I can make sense of what you wrote.

I find it hard to believe that the only speakers of the word "guy" for groups do so only in gender-neutral terms.

> okay, so you're saying

No that is not what I am saying and by now I do not believe anymore that you are trying to argue in good faith.

The article’s point is that “One of the problems with dismissing the word guys as inherently masculine is that it assumes that the gendering of language is fixed — that the meaning we make of things now is the meaning they’ve always had and always will.” and she doesn’t see a problem in using guys with a gender-neutral meaning.

What someone wrote forty years ago is not gospel. Neither is that article, of course. But at least is current.

Yes. That's why I characterized it as 'a call for everyone to interpret "guys" as gender neutral.'.

An aspirational future is not the same thing as the present, and we see "guys", in the plurals sense, definitely being used as male-only.

Another example: "GirlsAskGuys is your social community where girls and guys share their opinions & life experiences, to help better understand each other on topics ranging from dating to fashion." - https://www.girlsaskguys.com/content/about-us.html

The context was 'Since when is the use of the word “guys” a micro aggression?', the linked-to essay refers to people making that claim now, so I assume there are people who don't like being referred to as "guy".

> What someone wrote forty years ago is not gospel

Sure. What it does do is date the "Since when is the use of the word “guys” a micro aggression" as starting at least 40 years ago.

> An aspirational future is not the same thing as the present, and we see "guys", in the plurals sense, definitely being used as male-only.

We see guys being used as male-only. We also see guys being used for mixed-gender or female-only groups.

We see them being applied to groups and we also see them being applied to individuals.

We see a lot of things in the present - and 40 years ago, for that matter.

> What it does do is date the "Since when is the use of the word “guys” a micro aggression" as starting at least 40 years ago.

Ageeed, it illustrates that it was used 40 years ago and that there were proponents and detractors of that use. The use may be more extended today - I don’t know. (What definitely has changed is the ubiquity of “microagressions”.)

Another random testimony from the intertubes:

“When I was a teen back in the 1960's (yeah, I'm old!) the "Hey, Guys!" or "Hi, folks!" was a common way to greet a group regardless of gender. For most of us, at least. It was how females greeted their female friends. Almost invariably, if the group was mixed, someone, almost always male, would try to "correct" our gender-neutral greeting. It was irritating.”

(Isn’t it funny that using “guys” in a gender-neutral way is a microagression and telling people not to use “guys” in a gender-neutral way is also a micro-agression?)

> What definitely has changed is the ubiquity of “microagressions”.)

Sure. The term is "microaggression" is relatively newly popular. I'm probably also wrong in grouping Hofstadter's "pet peeve" as an example of "microaggression", rather than using a more encompassing term.

But bear in mind that it's being used in this linked-to essay to provoke a knee-jerk response to the term "microaggression", enhanced by using one of the mildest examples - "guy" - as the representative case.

It's so mild it's very hard for me to find any examples of people arguing that “guys” is a microaggression, in order see what those DEI instructors teach. One of the few (after looking at scores of Google and DDG hits) is https://www.clearpnt.com/3-key-trends-in-dei-training/ which says:

> When using scenarios, give examples that avoid words with negative connotations for specific groups, like “blind tests,” “powwow,” “and “guys.”

Thing is, "guys" when used poorly can have negative connotations. "Let the guys select what to do next" is likely read as gendered.

I'm accepting the author is correct in saying DEI instructors are making that argument.

But that acceptance also requires me to accept that the DEI trainers know what they are doing, until presented with evidence to the contrary.

For example, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-022-05203-0 gives these examples of microaggression: "highlighting gender by singling women out in a group of men (i.e., “Hey guys, and one gal”) or treating the women differently because of their gender (i.e., having an open office door policy for the women but not for the men)".

Those would surely be better examples in a DEI training course, yes?

> (Isn’t it funny that using “guys” in a gender-neutral way is a microagression and telling people not to use “guys” in a gender-neutral way is also a micro-agression?)

As an aside, this exchange has taught me that "aggression" has two g:s. And I still make that typo.

I don't think your description of 'is also a micro-aggression' fits the definition of 'microaggression.'

I just read the first 20 or so pages of Sue's "Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation" (2010) book at https://archive.org/details/microaggressions0000sued/page/24... and it characterizes microaggressions as "brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership".

Using “guys” in a gender-neutral way doesn't define a group membership.

I’m sure that many people would consider the example I quoted (“Almost invariably, if the group was mixed, someone, almost always male, would try to "correct" our gender-neutral greeting.”) a “mansplaining” micro-aggression.

Consider your own example “highlighting gender by singling women out in a group of men (i.e., “Hey guys, and one gal”)”

Don’t you think that some people would see there a “invisibilization” micro-aggression if “Hey guys” had been used instead?

In which case, the DEI training is right to point that out, correct?