As a non-native speaker I'm confused about the meaning of "you guys". I know there's a debate about whether "guys" alone includes everyone or just men but what about "you guys"? Am I being impolite to women (or anyone else other than men) by using it? If so, what should I use instead?
1 month ago 路 馃憤 enceladus
@tskallgard actually, from what I remember, thou was never originally used as a general-purpose second person singular pronoun. Instead, it was a *familiar* second person singular pronoun. As in, "I consider thee to be a part of my family, or equivalent". I'm not actually sure if there was a general-purpose singular, or a familiar plural. 路 1 month ago
To add some background to this, "you" originally only referred to a group of people. When we lost our singular second-person pronoun (thou), we needed new ways to distinguish. This is why the English-speaking world has so many ways to do this. You've got y'all, youse, yinz, you guys, you lot, etc. In my native dialect, "you guys" is literally just the second person plural pronoun. Someday we'll recover from the loss of "thou." Someday. 路 1 month ago
It depends on where you're from. It's generally regarded as gender neutral in Ireland despite "guys" originally referring to men only (as far as I know). See also: lads. I prefer "folks" on the internet where people could be from all different cultures. 路 1 month ago
As a yank (someone from the northern part of the USA) "you guys" is very common and completely neutral. We get slack from "The South" for not using something like "you all/y'all" but the term is almost considered a part of our culture at this point with the silly argument over which term is better/whether it's worth changing.
I find a lot of alternate terms feel odd to say, whether they're distinctly British ("you lot") or just feel awkward and like the "hello fellow kids" meme ("hello friends" will make me feel like a Zuckerberg bot). I'm sure another term will come with time, but I'm not sure what it'll be yet. 路 1 month ago
"you guys" can certainly come across badly, it depends on who is in the group though.
"friends" can be helpful. Like saying "hi friends" when you enter a room. But it is pretty informal. 路 1 month ago
I personally use "you all" and "you folks". 路 1 month ago
Personally, I generally go with "You lot" or "you bunch". Advantage: unambiguously gender-neutral. Disadvantage: *very* informal, one might even say impolite. 路 1 month ago
I don't think hardly anyone would think "you guys" is impolite and it's pretty widely understood to be gender-neutral. But it's also a bit informal so something like "you all" might be better in some cases. 路 1 month ago