It's not suitable to refer to a single person of either gender.
On Sep 27, 2012, at 11:34 AM, Owen DeLong wrote:
> When did "people" stop being an acceptable gender-neutral substitute for
> {guys,gals}?
>
> Owen
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Sep 27, 2012, at 1:10 PM, Jo Rhett <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On Sep 27, 2012, at 9:20 AM, Jim Mercer wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 12:12:50PM -0400, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
>>>> Many. Although in fairness, some people use "guys" in a gender-neutral
>>>> manner.
>>>
>>> some people use it in a globally-neutral manner.
>>> "those guys over there" pointing at a rack full of servers.
>>
>>
>> Guys seem to think that it's gender neutral. The majority of women are used
>> to this, but they have indicated to me that they don't believe it to be very
>> neutral. Using "guys" is not gender neutral, it's flat out implying the
>> other gender doesn't matter. *
>>
>> Given the lack of truly neutral terms in english, I have taken to
>> alternative my pronouns interchangably when I write.
>> "Those guys are chewing on that, but these gals are doing the vector
>> calculations." (pointing at different racks of gear)
>>
>> Or when actually referring to persons of mixed gender, here's a quote from
>> something I posted in a private forum (my own journal) which is safe for
>> export:
>>
>>> Because frankly, we're all in this together and honestly everyone loves the
>>> competition. The guys I race with often come find me afterwards and tell me
>>> where they got past me, or ask me how I kept passing them. The really fast
>>> girls rarely want more than a beer to go out on the track and give you a
>>> detailed breakdown on what you are doing wrong. We all help each other.
>>
>>
>> In this situation I'm leaving it up the reader to grasp that I'm not saying
>> that the girls are all faster than the boys, but I believe it's understood
>> in context as the topic was about how peers help each other out.
>>
>> I really wish that english had better pronouns for this.
>>
>> * As evidence of the nasty side effects of this, the bible was translated
>> from a language which understands gender neutral terms to english, and was
>> in translating reduced it to "man". Which is now used by
>> only-english-speaking preachers to justify the "proper placement" of women
>> in society.
>>
>> If for no other reason than that the use of a single gender pronoun confuses
>> less intelligent types to assume that women aren't important in technology
>> (and god knows this completely baseless assumption is widely held) do your
>> part to mix it up!
>>
>> --
>> Jo Rhett
>> Net Consonance : net philanthropy to improve open source and internet
>> projects.
>>
>>
--
Jo Rhett
Net Consonance : net philanthropy to improve open source and internet projects.
