guys != gender neutral

Thu Sep 27 20:00:33 UTC 2012

y'all
youse
ye

do not use 'gals'.....i've been told that is offensive here in the south
(i'm a yankee transplant)

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 2:52 PM, Kevin Carmical <KevinC at uca.edu> wrote:

> So say we all.
>
>
> Kevin Carmical
> Network Support
> UCA
> BBA 107
> 501-450-3107>>> <deleskie at gmail.com> 9/27/2012 1:52 PM >>>
> Maybe one of the folks here there aren't laywers but likes to give legal
> advice, that covers the use of male language to be for shortness in
> responses and no way indicate gender bias so we can all get back to talking
> about network :(
>
>
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: JC Dill <jcdill.lists at gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:36:03
> To: <nanog at nanog.org>
> Subject: Re: guys != gender neutral
>
> On 27/09/12 11:10 AM, Jo Rhett wrote:
> > Or when actually referring to persons of mixed gender, here's a quote
> > from something I posted in a private forum (my own journal) which is
> > safe for export:
> >> Because frankly, we're all in this together and honestly everyone loves
> the competition. The guys I race with often come find me afterwards and
> tell me where they got past me, or ask me how I kept passing them. The
> really fast girls rarely want more than a beer to go out on the track and
> give you a detailed breakdown on what you are doing wrong. We all help each
> other.
> >
> > In this situation I'm leaving it up the reader to grasp that I'm not
> saying that the girls are all faster than the boys, but I believe it's
> understood in context as the topic was about how peers help each other out.
>
> It's NOT helping to equivocate "guys" and "girls"!
>
> Guys and gals = equivalent
> Boys and girls = equivalent
> Guys and girls != equivalent
>
> All the TV shows that refer to female contestants as "girls" are not
> helping when they (universally) refer to the males as "guys".  Unless
> you refer to the male contestants (on TV) or team members (at work) as
> "boys" you shouldn't be using the word "girls" to refer to the females.
>
>
> > I really wish that english had better pronouns for this.
>
> I really wish folks would dig a bit deeper into the thesaurus to find
> appropriate words.  One can use a variety of gender neutral words with
> some simple re-writing.  Remember, it's perfectly OK to employ singular
> "they" as well.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
>
> jc
>
>