Is calling 'people' 'folk' part of gender ideology rewriting language norms or is it separate?

I find it really frustrating on Twitter as it has definitely been taken over by the so called “queer community” there.

There are times I would love to replace the word “people” for something shorter due to the strict constraints on the number of characters, but I never do because of the connotations.

In real life, living in Scotland, it’s always been widely used.

Sounds really American to me.

I’m from Yorkshire, so it’s a familiar word, I don’t wish to stop using it.

It does seem to have come from the US use, so there’s people using it like they use words like bathroom for toilet, garbage for rubbish and so on. I like colloquial words. They feel like part of the history of our region.

I wouldn’t necessarily write it on an internet forum, just as I wouldn’t write tha’ rather than you, although I speak like that sometimes.

I like local dialects and I think it’s important we keep them alive.

As a previous poster has said, they way it’s used now, by people who have adopted this rather than been raised with these words I a separate thing.

As pps have said, folks is normal in Scotland and has been forever

I've always heard it used in the context of something a bit mystical - as in a tale from folklore. We wouldn’t use that phrase “nowt as queer as folk” but to me listening to that phrase you are hinting that the person you are describing is one of the fairy folk.

emeraldisle.ie/the-fairy-folk

Please send an intentional mistake.. hello forks or hello foxes

my dad used folks continually in the 70s 80s 90s, early 00’s

It had all but died out in the UK but fashionable Leftists have re-imported it from America. There are examples of other words that completely died out here but are spoken in the USA like ‘fall’ for autumn.

“Folk” I only really see Americans using it online, and I find it twee but harmless. Makes me think of “folksy”, and Southerners (“how’re all you folks doing?”)

Folx I agree is an abomination. It’s also rapidly falling out of favour (as with Latinx and BAME) as a bit try-hard.

In NW England . And everyone has heard of folks tails and 'that's all folks' so we know what it means but I've never ever heard a person use that word

Same here.

There was this Lancet cover, too, and for a while I was also seeing a lot of stuff that referred to "black birthing bodies".

I'm sure there's some rationale behind it, and an explanation for why it's better to discuss discrimination and harm perpetrated against bodies than people. Maybe some kind of Cartesian dualism based theory about the people we are not being exactly the same thing as the bodies we're in, or something along those lines. But as I haven't been offered the explanation, it just hits me as horrifically dehumanising.

I’m not sure, but I’ve noticed it too and find it incredibly annoying. I know there are people who have used it since forever (as in the saying nowt queer as folk) but when people on twitter use it it’s jarring. There are several of these that I find very odd, and am not sure why they have become popular. I think Obama maybe sparked the resurgence of the use of “folk”. The other one I’ve noticed is “black and brown bodies” to refer to people of colour, also referring “spaces” all the time. Y’all, as in teens not from southern states of the US saying “so tired y’all” is another one I find hard to accept as authentic.
Im sure it’s just a trend like most things but would like to learn more.

This thread is really interesting and chimes with what I've noticed. But it got me wondering... I've always thought folk was plural (being a synonym for people - you wouldn't ever refer to a single folk). Is the s in the end an Americanism?

It rhymes with yolk

I think I read something in the guidance for education on the gender topics being looked at currently (well before the election anyhow) about how that would be stopping and teacher should not be worried about using the wrong terms.

Sorry if my dyslexia confused you. Ableist much?

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen thank you, that's interesting.

Yes! Glad it’s not just me who thinks of that!

I find it cringey when someone says it to avoid saying other words. Americans seem to get away with it it seems more natural when they use it?!

If I remember correctly, Dubya once referred to terrorists as 'those folks who are setting off bombs' or words to that effect.

Yes, folk is woke

Even among US West Coast progressives, this is not a thing (in real life, at least) -- it's an extreme minority view typically seen in certain online spaces.

"People" is used without any problem and virtually no one would claim it's linked to white supremacy in real-life interactions.

Same. I don’t know anyone else who uses it.
It reminds me of George w Bush 🤣

@RebelMoon

‘Handmaid ‘ has a long history , Atwood didn’t make it up. Gilead appropriated it from the biblical story of Abraham who had a child by his wife’s maidservant when his wife was ‘barren’. Handmaid has the connotation of being fairly low status within a complex household, probably without education or much self determination , but eager to please and ‘serve’ .

it is the term used by the Virgin in accepting her destiny as the mother of Christ

’Behold the Handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to Thy Word’. Submission without question ( though that was in a nobler cause, and to a higher Being).

@Marblessolveeverything

The word for a bunker or storage place is ‘Silo’. I can find no trace of a noun ‘sylo’ in English, although it is the name of a corporation quoted on the US stock exchange.

For someone who is currently issuing dictats on other posters’ language, you have some curious oversights, or should I say ‘over sites’?

Scottish lecturer here, and always use folks - right, folks, today we are going to cover XYZ - at work. My place is as woke as woke can be, so finally I am (inadvertently) playing the game.