Guys, “guys” is perfectly fine for addressing diverse groups | Hacker News Reader

Guys, “guys” is perfectly fine for addressing diverse groups

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44 pointsmpweiher96 comments

The real issue is that just over a century ago we lost a 2nd person plural pronoun and haven't really found a good subsitute since. When "you" took over for "thou" as the 2nd person singular pronoun we never replaced the original use of "you" with anything. So "guys", "y'all", "youse" are all attempts to fill the gap.

Folks kinda works. I usually use "guys" when addressing people, but when being extra sensitive (eg, if I'm addressing a bunch of MTF trans girls), I'll be careful and use "folks".

To make a list, for things that I use in a "Hey ___, ..." context, with varying levels of casual:

    - Guys  
    - Folks
    - People 
    - You lot
    - Motherfuckers/jerks (other insulting term that's obviously not meant in earnest)
    - Mateys
    - Chaps (debatably gender biased)
    - Team (or other factual statement e.g. colleagues)
    - Everyone
    - Dudes (also debatably gender biased, but depends on how well people know you. I call everyone dude, I am probably immature)
    - Reprobates/scallywags/some other sort of old world sounding term.

Yep. "Folks". I use it in all of my communications to my group (I am not the manager). I've tried others: "Guys" is clearly gender specific, "Ya'll" is pretty informal (although I use it on occasion), "Team" is barf-o-rama.

"Folks" works well. It's reasonably formal but not gross and, best yet, its inclusive.

HN is a fantastic resource for non - native English speakers. "barf-o-rama" added to dictionary.

It's not about offending people. It's about including everyone. I've taken my daughter to Girl Scout meetings and had to hear 'Ok, moms...' constantly. It doesn't offend me but it doesn't make me feel like a part of the group either.

I think you're taking the words too literally. The adult women could be aunts, guardians, sisters, adoptive mothers, biological mothers, etc. We can always seek out ways to find words to be unfit in a sentence, but, the purpose of speaking is to communicate. Normal people will understand that 'moms' in this case means any adult who in this scenario is representing a child in some capacity. It's shorthand.

Sure, the speaker could have included all possibilities when addressing the audience, etc., but why? We know what they mean, they didn't intend to exclude you in any way and as an adult you can process the exceptions (moms, the bathrooms are there) you can figure out where the men's toilet is.

If we concentrate on people's speech patterns, we can always find faults. There are better things to spend your energy on. We could also embark on pluralization vs apostrophe too, it's a noble cause, but we all know what people mean.

I think OP is well aware that the speaker isn't specifically addressing moms and only moms. But even knowing that, it can make you feel less included, which is in itself unpleasant, even if on a more rational level you know that you are included.

I've been in these situations and I really don't feel excluded at all by casual language. I'm sure I could, if I wanted to find cause, but I don't because I understand the subsurface meaning of what people are saying.

Hmmm...the post is not about offense. It is specifically about modern use of "guys" being inclusive, and being perceived as inclusive by the vast number of listeners when used in 2nd person plural.

With the evidence being a survey done via Twitter.

With the evidence being:

(a) The same survey cited incorrectly by the person I was responding to as evidence that the usage was not OK and should be exterminated.

(b) Webster's dictionary

(d) http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2012/10/slang

(e) https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.usage.english/yp...

(f) http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english...

(g) my personal experience as a language user and linguistics student

In all, if you want to avoid "guys" as an address, do so because it is too colloquial, which it might be, not because it is gendered, it isn't.

And as I wrote in my article: be prepared to be courteous to your audience. If there are people there who will take offense, you may choose something different. But it's not you, it's not the word, it's them.

Anyway: what is the evidence that it is not OK? Because it seems to me that the burden of proof is on the person wanting to prohibit/ban something, not on the person saying "do whatever you want, it's fine".

  With the Political Correctness police gaining momentum again after being laughed out of the 80ies

People say this kind of thing, and I know there are terms people have suggested that I find kind of silly.

However, we know better than to call people negros, and most of us know not to call a grown woman at work a "girl", (or a black man "boy").

The principle is pretty clear, we're just haggling over the details.

Essentially no one disagrees that there are some words that are overtly insulting, and others that are more or less subtly patronizing. We (myself) included, just have a knee-jerk reaction that "of course this one's ok". And we're probably right some of the time, but we're wrong other times.

  With the Political Correctness police gaining momentum 
  again after being laughed out of the 80ies

Maybe he has a point, maybe he doesn't, but when he talks like that I'm inclined to wait for someone who's not an ass to make the same argument and listen to that.

This "right to be offended" train of thought is parroted often by religious groups to try to remove speech and images that they do not like. I've been relentlessly called "too skinny/gay/etc" by people throughout my life and, yet people are getting upset about something that is gender neutral like "guys"? Give me a break. God forbid they actually have to deal with somebody who actually isn't nice or intentionally targets them about some aspect of who they are.

See, I would have thought someone who has been discriminated against would have more sympathy, not less.

As someone who has faced racial and religious discrimination, I would say no. I prefer it when people are more easy-going. Fine if you don't like who I am as long as you leave me alone.

I see this as another descent into a general milieu of intolerance and hostility, a kind of madness of crowds that seems to possess cultures every few decades. This rarely ends well.

I'd argue the term "PC brigade" is not perfectly fine if you want people to listen to your arguments.

The PC brigade won't listen to reasoned arguments anyhow, so no loss.

Nobody expects the Inqu^H^H^H^H PC brigade! It is probably better not to catch their attention anyway.

"Hi everyone".

I like using "Hi People". Because it's kind of nice and acknowledgementy.

I will judge you by all the things you say and all the things you do. But that's human nature isn't it.

Edit: I can't use the otherwise excellent y'all because it's not compatible with my nationality/accent :-)

Gah - I'm with you... y'all fits the bill in so many ways - I love the way it sounds when my Southern friends say it. I just can't get away with using it and not feeling a little contrived.

We definitely need a plural, informal you form - like the Spanish vosotros. :)

I'm a big fan of "Folks". It's not too informal and not too dressed up. It's 100% inclusive and it doesn't make you sound like a redneck.

You still have it a lot easier than Germans or French folks for example, where you also need to consider formal (Sie) and informal (Du) forms when addressing people.

"everyone" is offensive to people with dissociative identity disorder. Such people have multiple identities (or personalities), so they are not "one". You're basically erasing they're identities by using such language.

DID does not exist in the Tumblr version that gets talked about a lot. Actual DID is rare and has different forms. The DID you're talking about affects maybe 0.1% of the population.

Women, on the other hand, are about 50% of the population.

Whether it's 0.1% or 50% of the population doesn't matter, the point is it's offensive to some people, and it takes no effort to stop using it.

I'm not sure why you think it is offensive or erases anyone's identity. I don't object to it and have never heard anyone with DID object. For the record: my alter personalities don't object to the word 'everyone' either. In fact, it's useful because if there is something important you can ask 'everyone' or 'everyone inside' to listen which is much easier than asking everyone by name. And not everyone has a name or is willing to tell you what their name is or anything else about themselves. We DO strongly object to having people without dissocative identity disorder tell others what our views are. We exist and can speak for ourselves. DanBC - You don't say where you 0.1% figure comes from but 1 in 1,000 is not considered 'rare'. In the US alone that comes to a rather large number. The actual rate is between 1% and 3% - and varies depending on location, with the US having around 1% of people with dissociative identity disorder - for example compared to 0.7% with schizophrenia (source: DSM-5, 2013). Dissociative identity disorder is very often hidden, does not present in a way that people would especially recognize, and is a hidden disorder (like all the dissociative disorders). Stranger in the Mirror: Dissociation - The Hidden Epidemic is one of the better known books about it. Also the name of a website for the book. Tumblr is not a great place to get information about dissociative identity disorder because many people there claim to be 'multiple' or a 'multiple system' but actually state they don't have dissociative identity disorder, and don't experience amnesia, dissociation, or the effects of trauma which is the cause of it.

This is a useful blog addressing myths and facts with dissociative identity disorder. You' ll find good information on webmd, the merckx manuals, NAMI and pretty much anywhere with professionally reviewed articles about mental health. Healthy Place has a useful blog on myths too.

http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/dissociativeliving/2010/12...

I mean, even if you personally feel that "guys" is totally fine for mixed gender groups, it clearly bothers some people. So why not say, "hey, everyone..." instead of "hey, guys..."?

"So why not"

Why not? Because I'm growing increasingly tired of having to keep up with all the various people who are offended by trivial bullshit so that I can adjust my own language to fit them.

There is no right to not be offended, and I think that fact is a core part of freedom of speech, both Constitutionally and socially.

Edit (the following line is out of place and unwarranted in this discussion but I will keep it in for the sake of posterity.): We live in a harsh world, and there is some nasty shit out there. I think people need to learn to grow a thick skin already.

Don't misunderstand me, I fully embrace peoples right to request people to change some of the common word usage, but I also support the right of people that don't want to do so.

“I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.” - Voltaire

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/349

I also support the right of people that don't to do so.

But you seem to be against those people accepting consequences of that action. What if I'm offended and decide to stop hanging out with those people, or decide to remind them each time that they are offending me? They should accept my decision and not tell me to "grow a thick skin" and pretend that their offensiveness is my fault.

"What if I'm offended and decide to stop hanging out with those people, or decide to remind them each time that they are offending me?"

Let me clarify a bit please, I fully support people trying to educate people on potentially sensitive verbiage, and their ability to remove themselves from a situation where they aren't comfortable. I think you are right and my "grow a thick skin" comment was unwarranted so I have put an edit in saying so. My primary issue is this:

Censorship, full stop. Don't like something? Ok, tell the world your reasons, and try to convince it to follow your lead. Don't, however, use "offensiveness" as a tool of censorship of things you don't like. That's my main point, so sorry if I muddled it a bit. Censorship from either point of view is my issue.

Of course, you also have to take into consideration that I am saying this from a decidedly American perspective, where freedom of speech is respected to a higher degree than almost anywhere else.

I think Christopher Hitchens put it well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIU96N7ciXM

What part of "hey people, please don't use 'guys'" is censorship?

I still say 'guys' pretty regularly but every time I do I now check in with myself and think "was that a strongly gendered use? could I have said it better". Not because I feel forced to protect everyone around me, but because I want to do better at including people.

And finally, the obligatory "Free Speech" xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1357/

>And finally, the obligatory "Free Speech" xkcd:

Which could be translated as:

"Nice free speech you got there. Shame if there were any 'consequences'..."

True, one of the necessary conditions for free speech is that the government does not punish unpopular views, but another, even more important and vitally necessary condition underlying free speech is the tradition of respectful disagreement. This tradition is one of the prime values of the enlightenment, and it was hard won, emerging as it did from the repressive regimes and brutal religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries where people believed that they were under a divine imperative to eliminate all dissent.

The idea being propounded by the xkcd comic, that it is justifiable to mob, harass, shout down, and punish people you disagree with is deeply incompatible with enlightenment values, and represents a step backwards into barbarism.

It's interesting to see this viewpoint given as a reason to continue using language that we've been told is offensive and exclusionary towards a large group of people. (If you disagree with "offensive and exclusionary," substitute in "plausibly impolite" which doesn't change my main point and seems inarguable.)

The dose makes the poison.

The difference is that you see fit to declare holy war over very trivial micro-offences, while the religious factions after the enlightenment managed to interact peacefully despite profound disagreement with each other.

Hey, if you think that I've advocated censorship or claimed that you shouldn't have the right to say "hey guys" to mixed-gender groups, you've misread my comment.

I mean... this reads like, "I don't care about offending those people."

Which is exactly what it says, along with an argument that the rest of us shouldn't care either.

The world isn't completely a harsh place, not even close, and doesn't have to be. Although, you could be posting on HN from a war torn, famine ravaged country, I dunno. Anyway, maybe you could try making the world a slightly less harsh place, if that's how you really see it. And if it is, I'm sorry you've been brought to that conclusion.

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

You're mistaking "the world" for "middle/upper class US". Horrible things happen every day to people who don't deserve them. Ignoring that is ignoring the struggles of those people, every day. This isn't a US-only forum, people of many nationalities and countries come here.

Softening your language makes it easier to pretend these people don't exist.

"That's why they call it murder, not muckduck." - Dwight Schrute, The Office

"There's no right to not be offended"

There's no right you hold for people to not be offended at your speech, either.

I agree and apologize if I made it seem that is what I meant. It was not.

There are probably very few things you can say which do not bother some people.

Yes, but there are many things I can say that I'm not knowingly bothering people.

You could at least call people the right name, after they've told you the right name to call them over and over again.

And here you are calling them people when they may identify otherwise.

When people begin to argue over PC speech they fail to realize that nearly everything they do, everything they do, will offend someone or something.

Trying to please everyone is the suremost way to fail.

That was precisely my point. Many people fail to realize that you can deliberately choose what to be offended by. It's a choice. I could, if I wanted to, choose to be offended by being referred to as a "person" or part of a group of "people."

I know. I was agreeing and elaborating a bit more on it.

"Offence is rarely given - only taken." sums it up nicely.

So far no one has complained, and if they did, I would give it consideration. It's just common courtesy.

I think it's just the fact that it takes three times as long.

"Hey y'all..." :)

Being from Seattle, I don't have the habit of saying "y'all" but I recognize its utility. I like it much more than "you guys." I guess the Northeast equivalent would be "you's."

The worst thing ever is the second-person plural possessive that you hear on the West Coast: "you guys's." The correct word is just your but in the process of searching in vain for an unambiguous plural version we've created a monstrosity.

I'm from Pennsylvania; the alternatives there are "youse" and "yinz" which are two of the most awful words in english. (Both mean "y'all.")

"Yinz" is the north Appalachian version of "you'uns" or "youns" in central/south Appalachian. So not totally awful in context.

[0]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you-uns

"Hey all" works too! I probably use "you all"/y'all/guys about evenly

Once you mix something else in and stop saying 'guys' practically every time, it's hard to go back.

Hi, folks.

Hi, everyone.

Hi, friends.

Hi, y'all.

There's something for everyone.

Your respect for other people is worth less than 300 milliseconds?

Maybe we should all do that presidential thing and switch to "Folks..."

I don't think a lot of people will get offended if you address a group as guys. But if you address a group of girls as "girls", or even "gals", you are walking a fine line.

While I personally am a little less casual with language and would avoid saying something like guys or gals or peops. Before we get too exact about language, we have to understand how casual language has been accepted in schools and in society.

People will say things like 'thanks man' thanks buddy --when I don't know them well and not their buddy -I could find it offensive, if I were of the sort; It's not as if they don't know my forename. This is what society has allowed, along with the acceptance infantilization of adult behavior. Moms and dads and other adults wanting to appear hipper and cooler by adopting juvenile language --like guys.

So before you castigate people for their unconscious language choices, (lots of women use 'guys' to include both sexes), understand why.

Moreover, as with many words, they can have multiple meanings depending on context. Let's take sanction. We know the meaning given a context. Same with 'guys', or the pronoun 'you'

I wonder how generational or regional or maybe even contextual this is? A couple years back, I overheard a young teenage girl address the rest of her female soccer teammates with "hey guys." Is it not exclusionary when said by a girl? When addressed to a group of all girls? When not in a professional setting?

It's not perceived as exclusionary by >90% of the people in the informal poll cited.

"Informal poll" == "possibly true facts"

This is a great example of mistaking a nuanced social issue with one that has a binary answer. In many social situations saying "guys" is not gender specific... but that does not mean that it is "perfectly" fine to use in all cases. Some people may find it offensive or exclusionary in some cases and it doesn't hurt to be respectful of that.

We should of course be on the lookout for those who would try to chill free expression via enforcing some sort of Orwellian newspeak by making baseless accusations of being offended/excluded/discriminated against... but those people are rare, pretty easy to spot, and outnumbered by good people who have legitimate complaints. And BTW if you want to have credibility when calling out the former, it might be a good idea to be respectful and earn gravitas in the eyes of the latter.

Bikeshedding while Rome burns.

I noticed the "guys" issue years ago, when I was teaching and needed to get the class's attention: http://jakeseliger.com/2010/03/21/hey-guys-read-this. I still haven't found a good replacement: "Everyone" sounds a little too formal, and talking to "everyone" using that word makes it sound a little too much like talking to no one.

Appeal to dictionary? Perennial favourite distraction and obfuscation technique.

Because, you know, common usage never changes.

"Guys" is fine, except when it isn't. It's a pain point for some people, and it's reasonable to be sensitive to that.

> Yeah, and medieval oppression was actually real, unlike some other "oppression" I can think of.

That crosses the line into the ridiculous, and is precisely the kind of poison we should try to avoid. Oppression means longstanding cruel treatment or control. The author doesn't perceive longstanding class, gender and race based control and oppression over the last few generations in our society. That makes the author maybe not a great source to take advice from on the topic at hand.

Oh god. So much this. Author is a ding-bat for pulling that terrible argument out. It makes it very hard to take the rest of the argument seriously when poorly thought out garbage like that is introduced. "I don't notice or feel the oppression, therefore it must not exist. Sample size of N=1 is good enough for me". Thick.

You really think the "oppression" of women in western industrialized nations today is comparable to the oppression of a conquered people in medieval times?

Certainly not, no-- but that doesn't make the oppression we're talking about not real. We've come a long way. The oppression today is not anything like it was 50 years ago. But just because we've come a long way today doesn't mean that we need to quit striving for the ideal and trying to do better tomorrow. That's a fallacy. If everyone always thought that way, we'd have just been done when we gave women the vote a hundred years ago. Or maybe the 3/5ths compromise was a big improvement over the status quo at the time. I certainly don't think the oppression of various groups in the West is comparable to oppression of conquered people in medieval times; but that's no excuse to claim that the oppression of various groups in the West in modern times is not real.

What oppression?

Just for clarity: are you saying that women don't face any oppression in the US? How about Europe?

I am asking how women are oppressed in western democracies.

It's the author that made the comparison. And NO, I don't think they are comparable. I'm also the one that is not making the comparison. I think if you try to compare them you are an ass. That's my point, that it's stupid to compare them. Bad things are bad. Congrats.

The author says nothing about class- or race-based oppression, either to address or dismiss, so that's a bit of a strawman, and the little bit of well-poisoning you do in your own last sentence doesn't elevate the discussion much either. Who is it we shouldn't be taking advice from, again?

It's almost like words can take on different meanings depending on context.

In my language variety, the issue never comes up. A group of people is always addressed as "y'all". "Guys" would sound weird whether the group was mixed gender or not.

I prefer to use "people" but I have also found that I prefer to spend my time around people that wouldn't have cared if I used "guys".

I just use "Hey folks" in mixed company. I have a strong compulsion to be very accurate/precise about things though.

A guy I work with also always says "The boys" or "The guys" when referring to his co-workers.

It just feels strange to me, even if they are all guys.

In German we have "Leute" which means "People" but doesn't have a singular.

I'd love to see stats broken down by age. Anecdotally, it seems older people tend to see it as less gender neutral, and younger people tend to see it as more gender neutral.

If you click through, the stats are basically junk. Self-selected survey distributed via Twitter.

An interesting experiment to try is to say "girls"/"ladies" instead of "guys" for non-gender-specific uses, and see how weird it feels.

I use "Hey, civilians" just to be safe.

What the poll shows is that it's only considered neutral when plural, and in the vocative case.

Exactly. Which was the case being discussed. As discussed.

This is a great opportunity for "Ya'll" and "Yinz" to rise in popularity.

Or bring back the original 'ye'. It is still in use in some parts of Britain and Ireland.

Question for the Room.

Do the platinum rule: Treat and teach others the way they want to be treated and taught.

...except that you can't know that ahead of time. Some people are unreasonably touchy, or even looking for an excuse to start a fight. I found one among my followers on Twitter the other day, using my positive reference to a group as an excuse to burnish his own Enlightened Person credentials. We can argue over whether they're few or many, but to deny they exist is to leave the realm of rational or productive discourse. The best we can do is make an estimate of how a reasonable person might want to be treated and taught, and that's what the OP is trying to address.

I won't stop using it. I think it's bullshit. I'm honestly sick and tired of the language police trying to change society because they are somehow offended by a word that is non-offensive.

The word "cis" and "mansplaning" are both pejoratives..and it offends me. But it doesn't stop those same people who don't like the word "guys" from using it (and making it normal).

This is my problem with the entire discussion about this. It's not about removing offensive words or "equality". It's only about giving power to one group of people. The politicians love it because whenever there is an US vs Them mentality, they can take advantage and win votes.

"cis" isn't a pejorative in any sense I've seen it used, can you expand on why you think it is?

It's as much a pejorative as 'hetero', which is to say not at all.

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