It can mean “male person”, but that’s only if you use it in specific contexts that brings up gender (like saying “guys and gals”).
Totally unrelated but this Blaze Foley song talks specifically about getting back to a place "where the people say ya'll." It's beautiful:
P.S. Michael Cera does a nice cover of that song.
I grew up using guys just to refer to group of people
I love it. I blame France, specifically Remulac.
But this language has not been changing over time. This was a dictate from HR departments, made up from whole cloth. If anything has changed over time, it's that "gals" has been an anachronism for a long while, outside of a few isolated corners of the Southern and Western US where it can still manage to sound cute in some contexts. We don't really need a special diminutive for groups of women.
That being said, it's not formal language, it's chummy. If you're a 16 year old host at a restaurant speaking to a group of women older than you, you probably shouldn't be chummy.
"How are you guys doing today" spoken at a red lobster is absolutely fine, completely normal language, whether spoken by the president or by a child. It's the single most ubiquitous and wholly normal greeting that i know. Corporate really over does it sometimes
By one of the ladies, or by a manager who overheard you?
Well, I mooched it, and have seen it propagate here in the Northwest. Will not be long before it takes more general hold as we exchange people.
I seem to be bumping into it here (PDX) area more these days.
My favorite bit in all this is:
"All Y'all" which is simply plural for "Y'all", plus a subtle bit of familiarity state info.
If everyone is close, in agreement, likely to act as one, then "y'all" works for single as well as multiple people.
All y'all gets invoked when the group has differences. Maybe a few couples, or some people are new, or may be disagreeable in some way.
English is a lot of fun, because it allows for a very robust ad-hoc communication. Over time, the lexicon is never dull!
One of my former employers only a few years ago announced that they would ban the term "guys" because some people thought it was sexist. The ban was droppped because many people openly objected to the needless censorship while others simply saw no problem with the word and naturally just kept on using it. It was around the same time when coders and real estate agents were working to ban the term "master" from everything
The lesson is: things that sounded normal to you and your peer group growing up might not work in the larger and more culturally diverse world you encounter professionally. So why insist on them? I’ve switched to “you folks” which makes me sound like I’m about to lead a square dance, but people seem to find it disarming.
"how many guys have you dated" is not a collective noun.
Which could mean everyone clear out, or just the fellahs.
I don't get worried about people preferring a term that isn't "you guys", because it's probably an improvement to the language over all, even if it's some friction to change.
Granted, it is murky so I also don't really care about switching to y'all. The only problem I have with "y'all" is that it is such a southern thing that using it to me with my midwest accent sounds forced and awkward (At least to my ears).
Gen Alpha (and younger Zoomers) are working hard to make "bro", "bruh" and "dude" gender-neutral[1] everywhere - and they are succeeding. In decade, those complaining about "you guys" will seem quaint.
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/teenagers/comments/184ni9j/does_any...
"breh" was and will be gender-neutral in south Louisiana long after everyone else has forgotten any debates around whether or not it actually is or whatever it was co-opted from
have a feeling hawaiians feel similarly about "brah"/"braddah"
Just like "shade", "tea", and other queer lingo that was predominantly used within the queer community, "folx" was originally (in recent usage) a term that was used by some queer folk as a signal to indicate safety and inclusiveness.
But like "shade", some outsiders heard that jargon and started using it in communities where it wasn't common, and didn't carry the original intent, and so it looked confusing or annoying.
I think it's fine for communities to have vernacular words that are understood within their community, I suspect the real "villains" here to you are the folk who pull that jargon out and try to make it widespread.
I grew up in a culture where nobody had a problem with "you guys". I am really not that old, and I still live in the same city.
As for "not carrying the original intent" - I don't see how there's any meaningful difference in intent.
> I grew up in a culture where nobody had a problem with "you guys".
Did no one have a problem? Or did no one voice a problem? I'd believe the latter, but I don't know how it would be possible to know the former.
They come from the long tradition of gay men copying black American female mannerisms, not anything "queer."
> I suspect the real "villains" here to you are the folk who pull that jargon out and try to make it widespread.
Gay men have contributed a lot to world culture, they're not villains.
> Gay men have contributed a lot to world culture, they're not villains
Absolutely, I never insinuated otherwise. I also don't believe it's villainous to share one's culture and lingo. But the op who objected to folx appears to think that it is bad. Take it up with them!
Meaning "that's the truth, the straight truth, no disrespect intended".
These terms rose in popularity in the ballroom scene in New York. (Note: not ballroom dancing, but rather "drag ball" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_culture). The culture of that scene was predominantly Black and Latino.
I've never seen "folx."
Which is maybe a distinction without a difference, and I realize that you were probably just making a pithy statement. But I think its important if we want to examine how something like that actually came to be.
But I've definitely heard people refer to groups composed entirely of women as "you guys".
And anyway the masculine plural being genderless is a convention of romance languages, which english is not. It is not useful or consistent to describe expectations for english usage in terms of the features of other languages. Negative concord and invariant be are common language features globally but you don't hear white americans scrambling to include them in standard usage.
Identity politics has resulted in certain groups making concerted efforts to try to eliminate such usages, but it's still an ingrained part of our language.
If you call a plumber and they say “I’ll send a guy over”, there’s no implication that it’s male. Singular and genderless.