[clug] Google compared to latest Microsoft evilness

[Jack Kelly]

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 12:23 AM, Brendan Jurd<direvus at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/7/10 Jacinta Richardson <jarich at perltraining.com.au>:
>> Chris Smart wrote:
>>> Pretty sure "guy" is a unisex term these days ;-)
>>
>> Only in limited circumstances.  For a lot of the population, in a lot of
>> circumstances it still means male.
>
> Maybe.  But have you got a better alternative?
>
> "People"?  Too formal.
> "Peeps"?  Retarded.
> "Folks"?  Old fashioned.
> "Friends, Romans, Countrymen"?  Oops, male.
> "Dude"?  Often too informal and more male than "guy".
>
> My point is that when you're trying to use gender-neutral language,
> your options are limited.  It's very frustrating.  In today's
> environment of gender equality, it's natural to want to talk in a way
> that doesn't discriminate between male and female.  Especially as
> doing otherwise can get you into serious trouble.  But the language
> just isn't set up for that.  We have to make do with what we have.
> I'm in favour of just treating "guy" as neutral, and hoping that usage
> takes further hold.

Agreed.

I tend to use "guy" informally, and either "-human" as a suffix or
argue that "-man" is a shortening of "-human" (often ineffectively,
probably because I'm wrong ;-)).

Example: "sportshumans". (But not "sportsguys".)

Anything to stop the verbosity of e.g., "sports man or woman".

-- Jack