[Ads-l] fines for saying "you guys" to mixed groups?

[Laurence Horn]

I'm pretty sure nobody addressing a group of males (typically in a military context) as girls (or with an equally gendered but more loaded expression; cf. e.g. OED s.v. "cunt", 3) would be considered "imbuing the word’s unconscious halo with the positive aura associated with being [fe]male in our society".

LH

> On Jun 12, 2015, at 2:11 PM, W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Reflecting back on a misguided youth, there were several contexts in which
> a group of males were addressed as <girls>, by coaches and drill sergeants,
> clearly as a goad to more macho performance. But I can see this as a
> starting point for a more evolved neutering of the conundrum. Just as
> certain publications insist on a balanced third person gender distribution
> (he/she), we can sometimes address plural groups as <you guys> and other
> times as <you girls>. What do you girls think of this idea?
> 
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