The ultimate "you guys"

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Sun Jul 15 20:38:23 UTC 2012


"to your enticement" ?

Another victory for Inglish!

I don't see anything odd about the "you guys," though.  Or do I
misunderstand "distributive"?

JL

On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 3:01 PM, Alice Faber <faber at haskins.yale.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
> Organization: Haskins Laboratories
> Subject:      The ultimate "you guys"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  From a Great Lakes State Craigslist M-looking for-F personal listing,
> linked to for purposes of mockery on one of my forums,
>
> "If these things are to your enticement, and maybe give you the lady
> tingles, then let's roll, you guys."
>
> It's not just that "you guys" here has exclusively female reference, it
> has an odd distributive meaning.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
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