"When girls are 'guys'"

ROSE Blog: Rikki's Open Source Exchange

Our editor in chief, Joe Casad, and I once had a heated discussion about using he/she, he, she, or 'they' when we were referring to a singular gender-neutral person. I thought that if the article's author is male, we should use he, and if the article author is female, we'd use she. Joe thought that we should use they, even though it's technically plural, because they is now commonly accepted as gender-neutral and singular.

Finally, we agreed that we'd use "they" until the English language miraculously resolves this gender issue, but I put my foot down on ending sentences with prepositions. I don't care how acceptable that has become, it still makes me cringe when I see it in print.

Jan Freeman wrote a piece called "When girls are 'guys': News from the battle over you, plural" for Boston.com. The article is about using the term "guys" when addressing a mix of men and women. Frankly, it doesn't bother me and I'll happily accept "guys" as a gender-neutral term. "Guys" is just a friendly, welcoming, casual word that makes me think of potato chips, and what's not to like about that?

Of course, I don't speak for all the women/ladies/chicks/girls out there. I know plenty of women who hate being called girls, whereas being called a woman is less appealing to me than being called a girl. (Maybe it's because my daughter calls me "woman" instead of "Mom" when she's mad at me... )

Using "guys" might not be the perfect solution, but I think it's a much better option than the more inclusive "guys and gals." Any other suggestions?

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