"man" vs. "guy" redux

[Douglas Bigham]

Ah... but I can.

I can stand, with a female or a group of females, point to a different group
of females, and say "look at those guys".  I do it all the time.

What I'm not sure about, and what I'll test for weirdness as soon as I can,
is whether or not I can stand with a male, or group of males, point to a
group of females, and say "look at those guys".

What I couldn't do.... and what I'm pretty sure sitcom writers know we can't
do (since they seem to exploit it for fun a lot), is stand with a group I
have NO connection to, like logicians, point to another group of logicians
and say "look at those guys".  At least, I can't do it comfortably.

So perhaps I can use "guys" with a group of females to a different group of
females when I'm actually thinking "look at those fellow students" or
something.  But it still gets said.

-dsb
Douglas S. Bigham
University of Texas - Austin

In a message dated 11/19/2002 9:18:50 PM Central Standard Time,
hstahlke at WORLDNET.ATT.NET writes:

> but I can't point to a group of women and say to someone else,
> "See those guys?".


-dsb
Douglas S. Bigham
University of Texas - Austin