"guys" - an acceptable form of address for women?

[BelleCurve]

Is this appropriate/acceptable ever to use for a team of women/mixed? Does it matter if the person saying it is male or female?

I am trying to think of an improvement, but "ladies" or "girls" is even worse

I have wondered how a group of men would react they where told that now the affection "insert female type word" is a term to address all men and woman together as a gender neutral term.

How would they react, would they accept it or would they be more inclined to say something to stop the term being used to address them?

I am not keen on being addressed using a male term, if I make a fuss though I am being silly. If I don't say anything then no one knows that some of us object to the use of a male word being used to address us. I live in a household with only females and going out to a cafe/pub with only females and being addressed as "Hi guys" I find odd in itself - just say "hello" or "hi" no actual need for the guys to be added. They would think me odd if my reply was "Hi guys" or "Hi Guy" wouldn't they?

Re. trousers - think women were starting to wear them before WW2 but they were still unusual enough to cause comment. Vague memories of James Herriot saying his then girlfriend taken up 'the new fashion for slacks' in the late '30s. (He approved, IIRC, but there were plenty of Yorkshire country folk who muttered about it.)

'I agree too. I find it totally bizarre when people claim the word gay to mean uncool is harmless. I just can't understand that at all.'

No no no NO that's completely not what I was saying. I don't think it's OKAY to use it in that sense, but you've missed the point as has Seeker.

My point was that words have meanings according to how they are used and understood. Gay was just an example of a word with different meanings when used by different people.

If anyone thinks I meant it was 'fine' to use the word gay to mean 'uncool' they are very much mistaken.

I'll ignore the peanut brain thing, assuming it was aimed at me. I think you will understand what I was trying to say if you go back and read my penultimate post from last night.

Spot on SGM.

I remember the word "th'lid" being a popular insult when I started at secondary school. I didn't even know that it came from "Thalidomide" and was derived from the Thalidomide scandal, which left so many people with horrendous disabilities.

A teacher overheard a boy in my class using the term and she launched into a furious lecture about how thoughtless and inappropriate it was to use the word. She told us about the Thalidomide scandal and described a child she know who had been affected.
It silenced us all and I don't think any of us used the word again.

Yes, before I knew the word's genesis, I would have used it without thinking twice. Would that have made it alright?
Nope.

It does have different meanings. It used to mean happy, carefree and blythe.

More recently it began to mean homosexual. That meaning came into being through the sue of the word among the homosexual community, as far as I know, though that could be wrong - but anyway, that's not the point, it was used to mean homosexual so homosexual became its meaning.

You can transpose this onto the word ;guys; without going into the morality of using the word 'gay' to mean 'uncool' at all (though I used that example myself - it's not necessary).

eighty years ago you could have told someone that gay meant homosexual and they'd have laughed at you and said 'how horrid, it means happy'.

Then people started using it to mean homosexual and NOW, we take that as its meaning. Do you get my point?

The same thing could happen with the use of the word 'guys'. It could go from meaning 'men' to meaning 'people'. It just has to be used more frequently in that context and eventually it will become normal.

It has already to an extent or we wouldn't be having this discussion.

There was a consultant character on jo brand's comedy 'getting on' who kept addressing a mixed group of medical students as 'gents'. It was obv supposed to be annoying and it was very cringey in a Davd Brentesque way

Incidentally, I live in Spain and when we've had mixed Anglos and Spaniards doing things together, the Spaniards get very at being called "guys" - it sounds exactly the same as their pronunciation of "gays".
They don't tend to feel insulted though (not the ones I met, though) - they just thought it was funny once it was explained.

As you were...