Doug McGarrett wrote: > > > On 10/24/2019 02:51 AM, David wrote: > > On Thu, 24 Oct 2019 at 15:44, Default User <hunguponcont...@gmail.com> > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > Guys, [...] > > > > > > Guys, thanks for the feedback. I'm not sure what I will do yet. > > > > Hi, > > I'm sure you don't intend to offend, but in future please try > > to choose words that cannot accidentally be understood > > as excluding valued members of this community. > > > > Even though in some situations "guys" is claimed to be a > > gender-neutral word, I doubt that everyone thinks of themselves > > as a "guy". And it will be polite to those people to not make them > > choose between doing that or feeling excluded. > > > > > I first heard some young women use the word "guys" for a group of themselves > back around 1956. So it's not a neologism!
Neither is singular "they". Nevertheless, it's rude to assume that everyone worth having their feelings considered is male. "Folks", "People", "Fellow users", or in the examples above, just starting with "I have a problem" and "Thanks" all work pretty well. There are also fun neologisms like addressing people by common characteristics -- e.g., calling the inhabitants of debian-user "Debians". "Thanks, Debians." -dsr-
