Addressing a group of people as "guys"

@canteu said:

We do plenty of this on the US east coast, but ruin it by saying "yous guys," and we're back to the drawing board with the OP.

I do this myself - using guys casually and as a blanket term - but I'm trying to stop.

I say guys. If someone isn't cool with that I act accordingly. But it's probably going to happen again and hopefully they can live with it.

Does anyone listen to Professor Blastoff? Whenever someone says "guys" Tig says "aaannndd girls". I think that's pretty funny every time.

There are real things out there that are really, truly offensive. This is nowhere close to being one of them. This is just one of those things where the people who take offense are merely seeking attention.

Yes, pretty regularly.

that or just referring to women as "dudes" and I see no issue with that and none of my friends (even the more feminist ones) have ever taken offense. They're just words.

Boys used to be called girls:

"As it turns out, the word “girl” has an interesting history. As Mills found, when girl (alternately spelled gurle, girle or gerle) entered the English language in the 13th century, it was used to mean a child of either sex: knave girl meant a male child, while gay girl meant female. By the 1530s, girl had become gender-specific and not long after that, it took on low-status connotations, becoming slang for a female domestic labourer (by 1668) and then prostitute (in the 1700s)."

Basically, words have no inherent meaning other than what a society attributes to them at a time. The word "guys" itself is just changing to mean "you people". Language!

Having worked as a waiter for a large portion of my adult life, I've tried out every possible way to address mixed groups of people in a way where no one takes offense: there just really isn't any way to do it; some people are going to get pissy no matter what. Some ladies get offended by "guys," some people think "y'all" is too hokey or unsophisticated, some older people take offense at being called "folks" because they think you're calling them old.

Fuck it, I just use guys. Despite the fact that it CAN be interpreted by some prudish ladies to mean I'm calling them a man, that's not how any reasonable person should interpret it. It's commonly understood to sub as a generic, gender-neutral word in America, and everyone knows it. They can just get over it. What am I supposed to say? "How are you human beings doing tonight?" "How are you doing man, 2 ladies, child, and seeing eye dog? Can I start you off with something to drink?"

I use the term 'guys' pretty much exclusively as do most of the people I know, girls included. I might sometimes stretch it to 'guys and girls' when greeting people, but that's the extent of it.

I'm as much for eliminating sexism as anyone but getting offended over this seems ridiculous.

I use guys or dudes. Never seems like a big deal or anything because everyone I know uses the same terms or at least knows what I mean.

What's the male-gendered equivalent of "guys", then?

I always use guys when referring to multi-sex groups. I'll even say "dude" when referring to female friends.

I call a group of people guys, even when the group is entirely ladies and the women that I hang out with never take offence. Either that or I call the group "ladies." You ladies are the etc...

@video_game_king: Gentlemen?

I learned the language from movies and when I had American relatives over (I was 11, so around 20 years ago) I called two girls "you guys" in a sentence; like "you guys can do this and yada-yada" and they both stopped me as I was talking and told me they weren't guys. Awesome. I thought could be used for to refer to any group of people regardless of genders. Ah well. Embarrassing situation regardless.

@joshwent:

Not entirely sure if that's used in common speech, though.

@video_game_king: Well, I'm not entirely sure what your question meant. ;)

I was saying that "guys" is fast becoming a gender-neutral term like "folks" or "people", so why do we need a male-gendered equivalent?

Never fear. We won't run out of words to call men. There isn't a words-to-call-men shortage.

I say y'all or guys pretty often and no one has ever mentioned being offended by it to me, even when I use "guys" to address a group of girls.

I think people who are offended by it are a bit to sensitive; come on feminists, you've got better things to rally your pitchforks over! Maybe a few years down the line this'll become an issue, but for now it seems okay to use "guys" in a non-gender specific way.

in australia we call people "cunts".

I generally just say 'hey guys' when I am around friends ; however, on a professional standpoint, I did a short day course in public speaking for crowds and MC roles:

The class did point out that gendered terms could offend and gave a big list of suggestions, like 'everyone' 'everybody' all gender neutral stuff, like naming the group in regards to where you are - say you are a teacher you'd address everyone as 'class' or if you were I unno, in a festival or convention you'd say 'attendees'

Frankly, I think it's more than a tad silly to get upset over such a term. I am all for female equality and that stuff, but some things, like that, are just....silly, and the reason we see it as silly, is because it has become such a common term I suppose.

But if you switch it around, let's say, the term 'gals' became commonplace, would a dude get miffed if he was reffered to as a gal?


The lady who was offended, rather than bring attention to the entire thing, maybe should have addressed the situation by approaching the instigator privately and said "Look, I know you probably didn't mean to, but by reffering to us all as 'guys' feels like you are placing us all under a masculine blanket term and as a female/ feminist/ crazy cat lady that makes me a tad uncomfortable, may I suggest to use X or X in future?" Or heck, even if she said that in front of the crowd, it'd be less confronting, and have painted her in a more positive light.

It's all about how you present yerself, yo.

I remember once someone got offended when I said "Hey Dude," and it was a girl, but we were on familiar terms and she scoffed and said "Do you have ANY idea what you just called me?"

I shrugged and replied, "I know what I'm about to call you."

Suffice to say, we don't talk no more.