required plural marking in 2PP

[Michael Newman]

I got told off once too by an art education professor who sniffed that feminists care about such things. Later on by coincidence I heard she got told off by other people in recounting the story. 


it's ultimately an empircal question whether there's a semantic bias towards males in this form of address. Since no one has done the necessary research, we can't say for sure. But I sure don't see it. It sure doesn't feel intuitively at all the same as generic man or epicene he. 


Michael Newman
Associate Professor of Linguistics
Queens College/CUNY
michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu



On Jul 8, 2012, at 10:57 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: required plural marking in 2PP
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> At 7/8/2012 04:44 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>> It would surprise me if "you all" isn't used more frequently than
>> "you guys" when women are present. That's the hint.
> 
> I've used "you guys" in addressing two or more women of my
> acquaintance, and been called out by the more senior of them.  On the
> other hand, my unresearched impression is that it is not uncommon for
> women.  Or perhaps "among women" -- that is, like other epithets it
> is OK for the in-group but not for outsiders.
> 
> (Boston area.)
> 
> Joel
> 
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