Brooklynese in N.O.

[Peter A. McGraw]

A couple of years ago I read a letter to the editor of The Oregonian
(Portland) headed "Women are not guys."  I don't remember it being
impassioned, and I don't remember the precise argument, but the writer was
a woman and her premise was at least mildly feminist.

Peter Mc.

--On Friday, September 16, 2005 10:33 AM -0700 Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> Bethany, I've read an *impassioned* _cri de coeur_ by Douglas Hofstatder
> (in his _Le Ton Beau de Marot_ ) denouncing the use of "guy(s)," by
> anyone, to refer to females, ever,  as patriarchal sexist ideology at its
> unrestrained worst.
>
> Loony, but impassioned.
>
> JL
>
>
>
> "Bethany K. Dumas" <dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas"
> Subject: Re: Brooklynese in N.O.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
>
> On Thu, 15 Sep 2005, Mark A. Mandel wrote:
>
>> Interesting. Conversely, I use "gal" as a counterpart to "guy":
>> colloquial = 'woman' with no judgment attached. (But this is idiolect,
>> not dialect: a deliberate choice to fill a lexical gap.)
>
> To me, we're all guys.
>
> Bethany
>
>
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***************************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ****************************