What is the deal with folks?

[ToesAndFingersCrossed]

I’m sure my first post on this board could/should have been something a lot more intelligent and thought provoking, but I’m desperate to know. It grinds my gears something rotten seeing “folk” written everywhere. Is “people” offensive now too?

DidoLamenting

E.g. "I wis at the supermarket yesterday and some folk wereny following the arrows at all the arseholes"

No, I wouldn't say "folk "- or "arsehole" for that matter. I hate that expression. I don't even like typing it.

transscottish :)

@Galvantula

DidoLamenting.

E.g. "I wis at the supermarket yesterday and some folk wereny following the arrows at all the arseholes"

(No idea how one would actually spell weren'y. wereny? )

"Werenae"?

I think we should replace the faux-American-Deep-South "y'all" with the Glaswegian "youse yins."

I presume "folk" came to America via Scottish immigrants.

I've always liked "yee" as second-person plural because it reminds me of summers spent with extended family in Ireland. Also, it was the original Middle English second-person plural and I love these little linguistic artifacts.

See them folk down the road

I say that often

@DidoLamenting

Sorry if my example was a bit coarse (pronounced 'coorse' in my head, by my Mum)

Where in Scotland are the people who're hearing it a lot from, out of interest? My family is mostly from sort of mid East coast (being deliberately vague because this board is monitored by nutters and that's why we can't have nice things like conversations about where we're from) and I don't recall hearing it much growing up.

I think the reason woke kids use it is because they've picked it up from Americans they follow online. It's very common in the American South and among African Americans, and sounds perfectly natural in that context, it's when it's some young person from Sussex whose vernacular is completely different says it that it seems a bit out of place and thus sticks out as something they must have adopted from somewhere else.

"Folx" just looks like someone tried to write "fox" and had a fat fingered moment.

@TheProdigalKittensReturn

Where in Scotland are the people who're hearing it a lot from, out of interest? My family is mostly from sort of mid East coast (being deliberately vague because this board is monitored by nutters and that's why we can't have nice things like conversations about where we're from) and I don't recall hearing it much growing up.

I think the reason woke kids use it is because they've picked it up from Americans they follow online. It's very common in the American South and among African Americans, and sounds perfectly natural in that context, it's when it's some young person from Sussex whose vernacular is completely different says it that it seems a bit out of place and thus sticks out as something they must have adopted from somewhere else.

Fife. Parents are "your folks" here!

Are you hearing people use it in a more general sense though, or just for family? The way I see British woke youth using it is more in the way say Dolly Parton does, eg "poor folks".

(The pluralization is just a thing Americans do a lot. Never known why.)

Its a general thing.
How are your folks doing?
At work - right folks, let's end here and we'll pick up tomorrow.
Neighbour - hullo folks, not seen you in ages.

Its spoken though, I'm not sure I've ever seen it written.

Common useage in Northern Ireland. An English colleague of mine, who trained in Scotland, uses “folks” and I find it quite jarring in an English accent!

I quite like it as a neutral alternative to “guys”.

That's interesting, I wonder why my family don't use it much. Since the last conversation on here about this I've been paying attention to see if my dad does and nope, not at all. Maybe it's a written versus spoken thing since he and I communicate more via email or text due to the time difference.

I use folks now and then and it never occurred to me that this could ever be an issue!

Parents are "your folks" here!

North- east- same usage. My sister-in- law would use it in the sense of relatives. My brother and I wouldn't.

It's quite funny in a way as I suspect the woke folk would probably look down on my brother and sister-in-law as being country bumpkins. I mean they don't have any Black or trans friends and the only Asian people they know are the families who run the Chinese and Indian restaurants. (So pretty standard for rural Scotland)

"hows yer folks" - scottish enquiry after the health of family (usually auld dears aka parents)

"Some cis folks feel..." forced overfamiliarity in an attempt to shoe horn alien language/opinion in the style of uncommongroundmedia.com/banned-from-medium-pronouns-are-rohypnol/

I grew up on one coast and now live on the other, having spent many years in the middle. Heard it all over, both as referencing family and people in general.

Usage might be a bit to do with class, but I don't think so? No, I can hear it in my head in Morningside or Easterhouse.

They'd look down on a lot of the Southerners who they've appropriated "folks" from too, Dido, and black churches in the US tend not to be keen on gay people so they'd be on the not woke enough list too.

It really is odd that a word appropriated from people who would disagree with them on a great many issues has become sort of a signifier for smug liberal condescension.

"forced overfamiliarity"

That's it exactly, that's why it bothers me. My Scottish family don't use it but as a "how's your gran doing?" sort of thing it wouldn't bother me, it's when it's coming from people who're in the midst of delivering a rude, patronizing lecture about something they know very little about that it makes me want to tell them to piss off and stop insinuating a level of familiarity that does not actually exist. It's sort of a forced teaming thing I think, in that context, whereas if it was the people at the bakery in the town my father's family are from it would be based on actual familiarity and therefore wouldn't raise my hackles in the same way.

'The folk up the road'

'Good morning, folks'

Hm. No, it's just so commonly used I don't even really hear it. Not especially familiar to my ear.

All of these sneaky bastard language techniques jump out at me since I read and understood The Gift of Fear, this stuff needs taught in school.

The more people understand when they are being manipulated and how to apply critical analysis the less opportunity for viral stupidity to take hold.

It is a "familiarity" in that only people who actually know me and family would use it in that context, so you're right. I wouldn't use it in conversation with strangers or in a formal setting. I'd never thought of how I use it.

Here's some interesting (well, if you're me) historical usages of the word.

www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/fowk

For goodness sake, some of you just won't have it that folk/s is used by people other than trans supporters and is not even confined to the USA. Can't you give it a rest?

Someone MN once tried to tell me that young women only had long hair nowadays and this is because of trans people. Mumsnet has gone MAD.

The Gift of Fear really is useful in that sense, bringing things that you were already kind of aware of up the the surface of your consciousness. Glad we had this conversation now! The language usage was making me bristle and I couldn't quite put my finger on why, when people I know who're from the US south use it all the time and it doesn't provoke the same response. I wonder if I did hear it growing up and I'm just not remembering it because people don't use it so much in written communication, and I've been abroad for so long that that's mostly how I communicate with people back home.