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

[Gofastboatsmojito]

I've noticed this a lot in the last couple of years, it seems much more common in articles broadly on board with GI, pronouns, using the word Queer to describe anyone not achingly boring.

I've also noticed it coming out the mouths of my friends who are more TWAW inclined.

The word 'people' doesn't seem to have explicit links with biological realism or gender critical beliefs but it seems out of fashion in some circles.

Is this coincidence and more related to younger trendier language (!) or is it chosen for a reason?

I find peeps really cringe!

I use folk because I’ve always read a lot and lived in different continents and because it’s a useful nice word that people everywhere use. For real you cannot make this assumption that someone using folks is a TRA!! There’s folk tales, the little folk, gentlefolk in modern and old speak (Shakespeare used it), I hear thanks folks in corporate speak at work in both hemispheres and multiple other common usages. Others on this thread refer to more.

I'm not making any assumption that an individual using folk/folks, whatever the context, is a TRA.

I'm saying that there are patterns of usage that are identifiably different in this particular group of British people (mostly young, mostly highly-online, involved in strongly American-influenced social justice movements and particularly those around gender ideology and trans rights) compared to the patterns of usage you see from other groups or from British people more broadly. (I can't comment on how their usage compares to usage in other countries, though.)

Noticing patterns of how a word tends to be used by one group compared to others doesn't mean claiming that this group always does this, this group always does that, and any time someone says x it means they're in this group. It means noticing general trends, tendencies one way or another, looking at how stuff seems to average out and how particular usages cluster.

If you think I'm claiming that the moment "folk[s]" falls from someone's lips, you can immediately and accurately assign them to a specific social group, then you're misinterpreting what I'm saying.

Hell yes!

I had a course where the instructor called everyone folks but spelt it folx in all the written stuff, which felt ridiculous

Whenever I hear the word folk or folks, I immediately think of elves, pixies etc.

Well I really don't know y'all

I see a lot of use of "folk" when talking about the trans community. It also seems to be the done thing to refer to trans and non-binary "kiddos". Not children.

'Folk' (yes, I've noticed it being used a lot by TRAs) is interesting in that until recently it got used not just as a variant on 'people' but specifically with a suggestion of 'kinsfolk'. Going to see your folks - there's a suggestion of something closer than just the neighbours, certainly something different from humanity en masse.

Which makes me wonder if using it is sometimes part of the whole 'chosen family' narrative, which has potential to get very sinister.

Yes, that’s how they’d sound to me too. I’m from Southern England.

Absolutely agree (Scotland here too). It’s very common here. I’ve used it for decades and don’t give any further thought to it.

How to people pronounce folx?
Does it rhyme with bollocks or blokes?

Scottish here. If someone asked me " how are your folks?", they mean how are my parents and family. That's the usage here. Nothing trendy, woke or hipster about it.
Elsewhere, it clearly has different connotations. Much like the word "fanny".

This.

It's always been a common phrase where I'm from, (NW). You've heard the phrase "There's nowt as queer as folk"? I use it all the time.

blokes.

I'm obviously an outlier. I use 'folks' quite often, but am from the SE of England!

I sometimes say "right folks, let's get dinner started" or whatever.

But when people say "trans folk" it just reminds me of Woodland Folk - that hippy version of the Scouts. Like they're out with guitars, making friendship bracelets in the forest.

So the pronunciation for folks and folx is the same? How do you know if people are saying folks or folx? Or is it only when it’s written down that you see the difference?

😬I didn't know you were asking for both words. I was talking about folks. I need to RTFT next time.

The TRA usage of ‘folks’ or ‘folk’ though is intended to send specific gender identity dogma signals. People wanting to show they are supporting the party line in this also use ‘folx’. Where a random x substituted into ‘folks’ implies that boring norms are being messed with and suggests that inclusivity isn’t found in typical spelling () see also ‘womxn’. (Is there an equivalent Mxn? Pxople? Sorry that should be Pxoplx?)

In these settings ‘folks’ is just a twee faux-cosy imported Americanism- for example in London as I have seen it used, which isn’t a place with a local history of using ‘folks’. It’s often preferred to saying non-binary ‘people’. I think it’s gone a bit out of fashion by now.

Having read the word folks so much in this thread I now have no idea how to pronounce the word.

Seriously you need to stop overanalyzing language like this.

Folks is used for generations as is kiddos. I am sick and tired of people policing language. All you are doing is alienating people into sylos.

Snap

It's not "policing". It's observing. I expect if you analysed MN using corpus linguistics you'd find some distinctive language usage here, some of which may well colour the way some members speak in their non-MN lives too.

Grim, for example. I bet that would turn up at a far higher frequency on MN than in most English-language corpora, and I'd also wager that, on average, the way it gets used on MN skews heavily towards a particular subset of the ways the word "grim" can be used.

But noticing that, and pointing it out, isn't "policing" anybody, or alienating them into silos Identifying and commenting on distinctive ways that language gets used within a particular community, and more broadly by that community's members, is a perfectly valid thing to do and doesn't imply any criticism of anyone. Noticing that MNers use "grim" in a particular way, and quite frequently, is different to claiming that nobody used "grim" before MN existed, or saying that using "grim" is a sure sign of a MNer, or trying to tell people that they should/shouldn't use "grim" or that they should/shouldn't use it in a particular way (or trying to alienate MNers/non-MNers into a silo).

It's fine if you're not interested in language and communities, but there are people (like me) who find this stuff fascinating

Foak as in oak.