[156868] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: guys != gender neutral
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eric Parsonage)
Fri Sep 28 06:35:45 2012
From: Eric Parsonage <eric@eparsonage.com>
In-Reply-To: <87vceyy121.fsf@nemi.mork.no>
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 20:05:31 +0930
To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Bj=F8rn_Mork?= <bjorn@mork.no>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
The assumption of a 1-1 correspondence between gender and sex is old =
fashioned nowadays.
On 28/09/2012, at 6:30 PM, Bj=F8rn Mork wrote:
> Scott Howard <scott@doc.net.au> writes:
>> On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Jo Rhett <jrhett@netconsonance.com> =
wrote:
>>=20
>>> Guys seem to think that it's gender neutral. The majority of women =
are
>>> used to this, but they have indicated to me that they don't believe =
it to
>>> be very neutral. Using "guys" is not gender neutral, it's flat out =
implying
>>> the other gender doesn't matter. *
>>>=20
>>=20
>> The Oxford English dictionary apparently disagrees with you.
>>=20
>> =
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/guy?region=3Dus&=
q=3Dguys
>> (*guys*) people of either sex: * you guys want some coffee?
>> *
>>=20
>> As other many words in the English language there are multiple =
definitions,
>> and one of those definitions is gender specific - but the one above =
is very
>> much gender neutral ("either sex" - it doesn't get much clearer than =
that!)
>=20
> Well, "either" sort of implies that there are only two sexes. I =
believe
> "people of any sex" would have been better. See e.g.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender
>=20
>=20
> Bj=F8rn
>=20
