Grant Edwards wrote:
On 2009-08-11, Bearophile <bearophileh...@lycos.com> wrote:
Robert Dailey:
This breaks the flow of scope. Would you guys solve this
problem by moving failMsg into global scope? Perhaps through
some other type of syntax?
There are gals too here.
Straying a bit OT, but I find this particular issue rather
fascinating.
At least in the US, "guys" is now pretty much gender-neutral
according to my casual research (mostly just paying attention
to informal speach).
Oddly, it still seems to be masculine when singular. Though one
commonly hears a group of females addressed as "you guys" or
refered to as "those guys", one never hears a single female
referred to as "a guy" or "that guy".
It is a bit tricky, however, since a phrase like "a group of
guys" still seems to refer to just males since the word "guys"
in that case is being applied individually to a plurality of
persons rather being applied collectivelly to a single group --
if that makes any sense.
I've actually discussed this with a a number of female friends,
and they almost all thought the term "gals" was condescending
and actually preferred to be referred to collectively as
"guys".
I'm no English native, but I already heard women/men referring to a
group as "guys", no matter that group gender configuration. It's even
used for group composed exclusively of women. Moreover it looks like a
*very* friendly form, so there is really nothing to worry about it.
Forms like:
"Hi guys", "You guys should do something...", "Come on guys..." are very
friendly and gender-neutral.
JM
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