elections

[Matthew Rossi]

It kind of reminds me of Italian grammar. Regardless of whether there  
are 99 women and only one man in a room, the masculine plural is used...

Nonetheless, folks is a good word to use

Regards,
Matthew Rossi
matt at pcpodcast.org
+12539876413
+61488122990

Sent from my iPhone

On 21/03/2010, at 12:52 PM, Melissa Draper <melissa at meldraweb.com>  
wrote:

> On Sat, 2010-03-20 at 23:36 +1100, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:
>> On 7 March 2010 15:53, Melissa Draper <melissa at meldraweb.com> wrote:
>>> On Sun, 2010-03-07 at 12:36 +1100, Scott Evans wrote:
>>>> On Sun, 2010-03-07 at 09:37 +1100, peter baker wrote:
>>>>> hey guys
>>>
>>> And gals, please :P
>>
>> I think he meant it in the unisex sense, which when used as a
>> collective noun is quite socially acceptable these days. Is there a
>> better single word to use in this context?
>
> While it's used commonly as a collective noun in practice, it is still
> always a gendered term. I know of very few grouping terms which  
> validly
> applies singularly to members of one group of people, and then when
> non-members of that group are also involved; even as a majority, it  
> also
> applies to the non-members. Singularly, "guy" is never a girl. With  
> the
> word "guys", a group of 5 guys is referred to as guys. However a group
> of 5 guys and 10 girls is /still/ referred to as guys, and this defies
> the definition of "guy" and hence it is an incorrectly pluralised
> implementation of the word. It falls back to the era where a married
> couple were typically referred to as Mr and Mrs Mans Name and the wife
> no longer had an identity of her own.
>
> I find "Folks" to be a much more inclusive replacement.
>
> I'd also appreciate not have to defend my preference for women being
> visible/women as opposed to invisible/"honorary guys" on this list.
>
> -- 
> Melissa Draper
>
> w: http://meldraweb.com & http://geekosophical.net
> p: +61 4 0472 2736
>
>
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