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Gender-neutral pronoun for "he/she" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| oz-hestekræfte Senior Member Australia Joined 5678 days ago 103 posts - 117 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Danish | Message 33 of 74 14 November 2009 at 8:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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"You" is singular. So how do we make it plural? with an S, of course!
"Yous" is extremely common colloquially in Australia. And a most logical solution, I might add. Examples: You paint the fence Yous paint the fence What are ya up to? What are yas up to? (Which in truth would probably sound more like "Whatchas up to?") Formally I would probably use either "You all", "Everyone" or "You 3" etc. "Do you all understand? The emphasis here is on "all". This option by the way, is not specificlly American sounding at all. "You 4 go that way!" or for a larger group: "Everyone go that way!" Addressing both men & women as "guys" is also pretty common in Australia. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 34 of 74 14 November 2009 at 10:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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"You guys" is the standard colloquial plural in the part of Canada I come from. "Y'all" is ridiculously
Southern/Texan, and "yous" sounds like someone pretending to be a gangster. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| oz-hestekræfte Senior Member Australia Joined 5678 days ago 103 posts - 117 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Danish | Message 35 of 74 14 November 2009 at 10:54am | IP Logged | |||||
Maybe in an American accent, but to me yous is just normal everyday speak. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 36 of 74 14 November 2009 at 11:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well it seems clear that "You all" and "You guys" is 100% acceptable to use in the US, in any situation.
However, that's not the case in the UK where I live. So it doesn't solve my problem. Saying "You guys" in the UK makes the speaker seem like a silly teenager, somebody with an inadequate vocabulary, somebody with poor education or somebody who is trying to be American (which most people here would dissappove of). In social situations it is probably possible to get away with it even if somebody might tease me (not British) about using American expressions. However, for WORK (if you have a serious professional job) it's just NOT suitable to say "you guys". You might get away with it once or twice but on a regular basis - big no. Using "you guys" just doesn't sound professional at all. The reason I mentioned it is because I have had quite a problem with this. I need to address groups in this way over the phone quite often due to the nature of my job. At the moment I am using "you guys" because we've had misunderstandings before - the risk of misunderstandings is greater than my reservations against "you guys". But every time use it I just feel really stupid. Using "ONE" in UK English sounds a bit pretentious and "one" is always used by anybody making a parody of the Queen (who apparently uses "One" when she speaks of herself). So people don't use One in spoken English other than for comedy. I think English needs something similar to "On se...." from French - which can refer to oneself or people in general. I think most languages have a way to express this "general" condition without using "you" and I think it's an irritating shortcoming in English. Edited by cordelia0507 on 14 November 2009 at 11:39am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 37 of 74 14 November 2009 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You can try "you folks" which is what I sometimes use when I feel that "you guys" wouldn't be suitable for the situation (although I'm not sure if this is good enough to meet your criterion of "not being American" :-P), or what about changing the address a bit? (especially if you're working with other businesses).
e.g. "your team", "your group", "your side", "your office" etc. Yet another way (although not perfect) is not to use an active construction in the answer. Q: "So what should we do, cordelia0507?" A: "Well, one way is to look at / try / do / make... (so and so forth)" 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 38 of 74 14 November 2009 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
OK, saying "no-one uses it any more" was an exaggeration, but it is widely considered archaic.
How can it be incorrect if people use it? Whose language is it exactly that the majority of speakers can be wrong? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 39 of 74 14 November 2009 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh, and yous/youz/youse is very common in large parts of Ireland and Scotland.
2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Risch Groupie United States Joined 5589 days ago 49 posts - 71 votes Speaks: English* | Message 40 of 74 14 November 2009 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I came across a map of the US which displays the most common second person plural in
each state; it can be found on the wikipedia page for "Southern American English." I'm not sure how accurate it is. I agree for many of the states I am familiar with; however, although the map indicates that y'all is the predominant pronoun in Florida I would say that it is rather "you guys." Nonetheless, here in Florida y'all is not uncommonly heard. Maybe not in Miami (ustedes is predominant), but elsewhere I hear a mixture of you guys and y'all, though it often depends on where that person or his family is from. In my experience, there is also code switching that goes into it as well depending on whom I'm around. I have family in the "real" South, and when I am in Georgia or South Carolina, I use y'all exclusively. When I am back home, I probably use you guys more often that y'all, but I will only use the latter around family and friends (esp. those of Southern extraction.) In slightly more formal or unfamiliar environments, I find that I use only you guys. As for the original topic, as a couple of posters have already pointed out, "they" has been a gender neutral pronoun for centuries. That's the one I typically use in speech. "He" also has a long history of gender neutrality, and so I use that in writing (unless I am trying to win the favor of a hardcore feminist.)
It's also typical in Western Pennsylvania, and probably other parts of Northeast/Midwest that I'm less familiar with. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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