Brooklynese in N.O.

[Laurence Horn]

>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.

I'll second Jon's recommendation for anyone interested in that side
of the issue (it's around p. 202 in the 1997 Hofstadter book).  For
the other side, there's Clancy's _American Speech_ article:

Clancy, Steven J. (1999)  The ascent of guy.  American Speech 74: 282-97.

Larry

>
>--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
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------
>>Yahoo! for Good
>>  Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.
>
>
>
>***************************************************************************
>Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
>******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ****************************