So I’ve realized that in conversations I’ll use traditional terms for men as general terms for all genders, both singularly and for groups. I always mean it well, but I’ve been thinking that it’s not as inclusive to women/trans people.
For example I would say:
“What’s up guys?” “How’s it going man?” "Good job, my dude!” etc.
Replacing these terms with person, people, etc sounds awkward. Y’all works but sounds very southern US (nowhere near where I am located) so it sounds out of place.
So what are some better options?
Edit: thanks for all the answers peoples, I appreciate the honest ones and some of the funny ones.
The simplest approach is to just drop the usage of guys, man, etc. Folks for groups and mate for singular appeal to me when I do want to add one in between friends.
“Foolish mortals” is my go-to gender neutral form of address
y’all
you’uns
Or if you’re near Pittsburgh, “yinz” is the proper spelling/pronunciation.
Youse if you’re a Geordie.
further down under you may hear “hey, yous lot…”
And, for larger groups, all y’all.
Y’all doesn’t get enough love. It is gender neutral and extremely versatile.
Vosotros agrees.
Or in German: euch
I’m under the impression that you pronounce it the same way this cat looks.
You know… that’s about right.
😂😂😂😂😂
I still wonder why English (a Germanic language) doesn’t have its own pronoun for the plural 2nd person like German (euch) or Dutch (jullie), I think it kinda helps with distinction between talking to one person and talking to multiple people.
The problem is… what pronoun should we choose? I think “yinz” would sound kinda cool, but nobody outside of a very specific spot in the US actually uses it (other than myself I guess).
Ustedes if you’re less formal or you live outside Spain 😁
if you’re less formal
What a fun way to phrase that. You’re not wrong but it’s making me giggle.
I can’t do it, I don’t want to sound like I’m from the South.
If everyone starts using it, it won’t sound southern any more. C’mon, you know you want to.
Take it from them!
I agree. It’s the plural of “you” that should be the official standard, since it disambiguates “you.” It can even be broadened to include larger groups via “all y’all,” as in, not just y’all in talking to, but all y’all in the house.
It can replace “guys”, but not “man,” though.
The plural of you is yous or ye. In Ireland at least.
It sounds cringeworthy if you’re not American though. The standard way of saying it is “you lot” and other dialects, like mine, have “yous”.
Here where I’m from in the US, you occasionally hear a “y’alls” and now I’m going to start using it as a cultural gap between your dialect and mine.
It’s become the go-to in my company
Do you work with me? I’m in the US south and my EU colleagues love “y’all” and have started using it (ironically or not :) pretty often.
Warms my heart.
I have no hint of a Southern accent, but when I moved here “y’all” became almost an instant part of my vocabulary.
A LOT of my company is remote, but we are headquartered in Providence Rhode Island.
I use y’all a lot and im near Chicago
I’ve started using it and I’m Canadian.
I’ve started using it and I’m north of Canada … In Detroit
Did you know that you can be north of Canada … in California?
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-75f887668c7f322a0dd1a226e128cea3
TIL
At a more northern latitude than part of Canada. Detroit is directly north of part of Canada
What in the world. They need to fix that on the next patch.
yall sounds super trashy.
Scott the Woz on Lemmy? :o
“Hey y’all, Scott here.”
yinz
For those not in the US south and afraid of being judged, “all” on its own is an option.
“Hi all” is unlikely to raise any eyebrows
Comrade.
☭
wait, is “buddy” gendered?
I like to mix it up. but language is context dependent. “buddy” is a go-to of mine, and feels entirely gender neutral.
“my people” is good for plural.
“friend” is good as long as you have the right rhythm with it. Like, you know, in the second person, like “hello, friend.”
“bro” obviously doesn’t work, but I have casually referred to trans friends as “broham” and they didn’t seem to mind. I don’t do it often, but sometimes mixing in a good bro pun is more fun that way… go a little over the top, call somebody brobrahk brobrahma, nobody’s going to be thinking that you’re implying gender, it’s an equally ridiculous term to call anybody by. Similarly, although context dependent, there are implicitly feminine words you can use, although some of them can be degrading in the wrong context. “Gurl,” “bitch,” and “slut” can work, as long as it’s ridiculous enough in context not to be taken seriously. I’m a guy, I’ve had friends call me these. “Gurl” might not be the best for a nonbinary friend or a trans man friend, so be careful with it.
I don’t know, I only have a few nonbinary friends, I guess, and I mostly refer to most of them by their names.
Guys is always fine as it refers to followers of Guy Faulks and pretty much anyone has probably considered blowing up parliament at some point.
Buddy is masculine?
Could be. Depends on a bunch of factors. But as a trans person I’ve never encountered someone who’s trans and feels that it’s masculine.
What’s poppin primates‽‽‽
A wise man once said, “I’m a dude, he’s a dudes, she’s a dude. We’re all dudes. Hey!”
Out of the mouth of babes… 🥰
I believe that sentiment was also uttered by another wise man. A man of his time. Mr. Jeffrey Lebowski.
Strange though, that when you ask most men how many dudes they’ve slept with suddenly, she’s not a dude…
That’s just how our language works. You can also use the word “fuck” in many ways that have wildly different meanings.
It’s funny how “just how it works out” always leads to “neutral” words having double meanings that equal “man” but never “woman”
Maybe it’s not “just how it works” and maybe it’s just bias…
You’re literally arguing that this word should specifically exclude women, while complaining that double meanings never include women. It makes no sense. Why wouldn’t you want to take power over the word to make it apply to women too?
There is no world where “Check out that dude” will mean a woman.
It will always be “neutral” or masculine.
And that’s not neutral.
I have zero interest in fake neutrality
That’s because context matters.
“You’re shit” and “You’re the shit” mean completely different things
Of course. No one literally thinks that “dude” always means man.
The issue isn’t the obvious truth of the different meanings. The issue is that those different meanings aren’t neutral like they claim to be, because they rely on the idea of men being the “default” state of people.
There’s a reason there isn’t exactly a large number of words in use that can men “woman” and “everybody” and that’s because most men would be uncomfortable with that.
Yet somehow, the opposite is fine?
There’s a very big difference between “dude”, referring to someone you’re talking to, and “a dude”, referring to someone you were talking about.
Not to me there isn’t…
In the '60s, I made love to many, many women, often outdoors, in the mud and the rain, and it’s possible a man slipped in. There would be no way of knowing.
Then educate yourself. See definitions 1 and 2 for noun and definition for interjection.
It’s like the difference between “my shit”, “your shit”, and “that shit”. You’re not actually referring to your own things as feces, or calling it “shitty”. It’s just your shit. As in “Don’t touch my shit”. But when you’re referring to someone else’s shit as “your shit” or “that shit” it’s more derogatory. Like, “clean up that shit” or “get your shit out of here”.
The context changes “shit” from derogatory to neutral. Similarly, “dude” can be both gender specific and neutral depending on context.
Note that people are still allowed to prefer not be referred to as “dude”, but it’s a gender neutral term in many contexts.
Ive generally always agreed with the former comment, but I’ve heard this argument a few times and it does demonstrate the disconnect well. I’ve switched it up to a simple y’all.
Yep. Something that can only ever mean “neutral” or “man” isn’t neutral
As a former resident of San Diego I have no problem sleeping with dudes. Because everyone is dude.
People think they’re clever when they ask “would you sleep with the dude?” My response is " bold of you to assume that I haven’t." Everyone is dude. You can try to twist things as much as you like but dude normalization rains supreme.
I was talking about the default assumptions people make when they hear the word. Your circumstances don’t come in to it, unless your claim is that most people share your experiences
In San Diego the default assumption of “dude” is that it can be literally anyone or any thing.
The people there accepted this decades ago. It’s not one person’s experience. It’s a shared experience of millions. It’s a geographically specific situation with the Smurf language phenomenon. Any noun can be Smurf and everyone there understands the smurfing meaning when it’s smurfing said.
Meatbags.
Negative, I am a meat Popsicle.
Carbon-based life forms
Comrade ✊
dawg, home skillet, my glip glops, folks,
hydrogenated oilYou can’t say glip-glop! That’s their word!
it’s really all about context
for singular use boo works, and plural you can say “hey, fuckos”
Potential litigants
“Fuckers” is gender-neutral.
