271–280 of 381 posts
I personally think at this point y'all doesn't need to be defended, it is on it's way to winning regardless of what NYT Opinion pieces think.
Although reading the original NYT Opinion piece I do also agree with the premise that "you guys" has largely been drained of it's masculinity.
I think the general theme here misses the mark. McWhorter obviously wants to talk about the interestingness of genderless, though seemingly gendered, pronouns in his essay. So much so that his dismissiveness of "y'all" seems too curt, and I think it's a mistake because the regionalness of "y'all" over "you guys" reinforces his narrative. I also always raise an eyebrow when a linguist is pining for a universal familia…
I can say: "You removed from the list, yet here I am waiting" I bit curt. I can say: "Y'all removed from the list, yet here I am waiting" Friendly.
Well said.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a native midwesterner, I get more annoyed and defensive than I should when people complain that “you guys” isnt gender neutral. Where I come from, everyone is “a guy”. It can mean “male person”, but that’s only if you use it in specific contexts that brings up gender (like saying “guys and gals”).
I don't think people outside the midwest understand just how ubiquitous "you guys" is here. After a previous time this discussion occurred on HN, I had to chuckle to myself when I heard my sister address a group of little girls as "you guys". It's our version of "y'all".
I tease non-Texans that Texan English is actually superior to normal American English because it supports second-person plural via "Y'all" exactly as mentioned in this article... "you guys" is, to some ears, sexist, and "youse guys" (a New York-ism) is a little too old-school Italian. English lost its second person plural when we switched from Thou (second person singular formal + Thee=second person singular informal…
Thou and Thee are nominative and objective cases. Same for You and Ye. The formality/informality distinction is between You/Ye and Thou/Thee. Plural 2nd person used to formally address a single individual came to English from French, thanks to the Norman Conquest. French, I think, inherited it from Latin, and the custom of addressing the emperor with the plural. After a while it became rude to address people with the…
It's more likely the usage of "thy" in this instance was meant to reflect the style and largely supplicatory diction of the Pater Noster (i.e. "thy Kingdom come\thy will be done...")
I tease non-Texans that Texan English is actually superior to normal American English because it supports second-person plural via "Y'all" exactly as mentioned in this article... "you guys" is, to some ears, sexist, and "youse guys" (a New York-ism) is a little too old-school Italian. English lost its second person plural when we switched from Thou (second person singular formal + Thee=second person singular informal…
As a native midwesterner, I get more annoyed and defensive than I should when people complain that “you guys” isnt gender neutral. Where I come from, everyone is “a guy”. It can mean “male person”, but that’s only if you use it in specific contexts that brings up gender (like saying “guys and gals”).
Which could mean everyone clear out, or just the fellahs.
I don't get worried about people preferring a term that isn't "you guys", because it's probably an improvement to the language over all, even if it's some friction to change.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think people outside the midwest understand just how ubiquitous "you guys" is here. After a previous time this discussion occurred on HN, I had to chuckle to myself when I heard my sister address a group of little girls as "you guys". It's our version of "y'all".
Midwest? I thought it was just a West Coast thing! (Also extremely ubiquitous in SoCal.)
I tease non-Texans that Texan English is actually superior to normal American English because it supports second-person plural via "Y'all" exactly as mentioned in this article... "you guys" is, to some ears, sexist, and "youse guys" (a New York-ism) is a little too old-school Italian. English lost its second person plural when we switched from Thou (second person singular formal + Thee=second person singular informal…
As a native midwesterner, I get more annoyed and defensive than I should when people complain that “you guys” isnt gender neutral. Where I come from, everyone is “a guy”. It can mean “male person”, but that’s only if you use it in specific contexts that brings up gender (like saying “guys and gals”).
The new second person plural is "chat". I can't decide if I'm making a joke or not by saying that.
Is it second person though? It feels like most of the times I've heard it in person, outside of a real livestream, it's sort of been for asking a question into the aether as emphasis. "Chat, are you seeing this?" to emphasize something stupid they're seeing. It's not really spoken TO the person doing the stupid thing, it's spoken to this imaginary crowd to emphasize that what the other person is doing is obviously st…
Though, I've also found Shakespearean scholars want to argue that while English did invent the fourth person pronoun, Shakespeare did it first with "Gentles" in several plays, most notably Puck's fourth wall break speech in Midsummer Night's Dream. (It is fun to give that speech with "Gentles" replaced as "Chat". To keep the rhythm you use the two syllable callout form of "Chat", which does exist in plenty of Twitch examples.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a sentiment that's only come up in the past 15 years. Same with the "Latinx" bullshit (that white people came up with)
latinx is nothing compared to "folx"
Just like "shade", "tea", and other queer lingo that was predominantly used within the queer community, "folx" was originally (in recent usage) a term that was used by some queer folk as a signal to indicate safety and inclusiveness.
But like "shade", some outsiders heard that jargon and started using it in communities where it wasn't common, and didn't carry the original intent, and so it looked confusing or annoying.
I think it's fine for communities to have vernacular words that are understood within their community, I suspect the real "villains" here to you are the folk who pull that jargon out and try to make it widespread.