you guys

[Jewls2u]

My daughter is four. She has named her hands and feet after the Wiggles
(Children's show; Greg, Anthony, Jeff and Murry), they are her "guys". We
were in the paint store and she said hello to the cute boy mixing our cans
with "Hey...you...big...guy". He was a big guy, especially to a then three
year old. But, when she wants people to gather around to look at something,
or follow her it's "Hey guys, over here" or "Come quick guys, look at this".

Julienne

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Dennis R. Preston
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 5:12 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: you guys


Not particularly interesting up here in the frozen North (East
Lansing); such usage is common. More recently, even "guys" without
"you" has moved into this territory. I heard a young woman yell to
friends of hers just the other day "Hey Guys! Wait up! Even this may
have been around here longer than I think (since my principal
channels of communication are with aged graduate students and
colleagues).

dInIs

To clarift my first message, "I'm glad I'm not a woman--you guys have too
many issues to deal with!" seemed particularly interesting because "you
guys" is used to address all women, and only women.

-Mai

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
      Asian & African Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
e-mail: preston at msu.edu
phone: (517) 353-9290