Hey, crew, settle in and let’s get started.Informal collective terms of address like these are best reserved for people you’re familiar with, such as your close colleagues at work or a group of children. But there are also options that work for more specific situations, such as when you want to be more informal or when you’re communicating in the classroom, the workplace, or with a team. everyone, everybodyĮasy, go-to options to address a large group of people are everyone and everybody.Īll of the options to this point have been very general. If you feel like folks sounds too, well, folksy, there are also some very general options. Are you folks interested in looking at the dessert menu?.And the phrase you folks can easily stand in for you guys. peoples or persons? Read more about these terms.Ī good alternative is folks, which, like y’all, has some built-in friendliness. folks, you folksĪddressing people by actually using the word people can be tricky-it can be used to sound positive ( Good job, people!), but it’s also associated with less polite use ( Come on, people, get it together!). Of course, these phrases can be easily varied to address specific numbers of people, as in the three of you, you four, all five of you, etc. I can’t believe you two did this for me.Do both of you have some time to help me with this?.You both, both of you, and you two function the same way as you all and all of you except that they are reserved for addressing two people, instead of larger groups. Each of you will have a chance to ask a question.To address individuals within a group, you can use the phrase each of you. The word all can be used by itself as a term of address for groups. I can’t believe all of you did this for me.Do you all have some time to help me with this?.They can be used in many of the same ways that you guys is used. You all and all of you are options that come with a lot of the same benefits as y’all but without the regional association. The good news is that another alternative is hiding right inside of y’all. Still, some are uncomfortable using y’all or hesitant to embrace it due to a number of factors, such as feeling overly folksy or inauthentic-like they’re imitating someone else’s speech. It’s casual but not overly personal, and frankly just a lot of fun to say.įor these reasons, many have proposed it as the perfect gender-neutral alternative (in both tone and function) to guys and you guys. Y’all is such an efficient, useful word-especially because it comes with a built-in sense of friendliness, warmth, and inclusion. There are similar regionalisms (like yinz, you-uns, yous, and youse), but these are far less widespread and recognizable than y’all, whose use has spread beyond the South. Y’all is a contraction of you all, a construction that English speakers in the US South have found useful for centuries. You is used by itself as a plural in this way all the time. When thinking about alternatives to you guys, the simplest solution is often to just drop the guys. Here’s a simple alternative to saying guys or you guys: address people with their names. Here are some suggestions for replacing guys or avoiding its use. We’ve done our best to avoid clunky approximations that often miss the mark tone-wise or overstep familiarity (not all strangers like to be called friends, for example). But there are plenty of similar-and very simple and familiar-terms that can serve all the same functions with complete gender-neutrality. It can be hard to stop using language that comes so naturally, especially when it seems hard-coded into the way we communicate. There’s no doubt that the word guys is useful and, for many people, extremely frequently used. Applying the terms guys and you guys indiscriminately can end up excluding, ignoring, or creating discomfort for some people-particularly women and nonbinary people.įor these reasons, some people prefer to avoid using such terms, because they prefer not to be addressed in these ways or want to respect the preferences of those who don’t. The singular guy, for example, is never used to address or refer to an individual girl or woman. Is guys gender-neutral?įor years, the term guys and expressions like you guys have been commonly employed to address groups regardless of the gender of the group’s members, including by women addressing other women.ĭespite the long history of this kind of use, such terms nevertheless carry gendered origins and connotations. (Including some that we just used without y’all even noticing it). The answer is yes, and we have suggestions for each and every one of you. You may be asking if there are any good substitutes for such useful terms. Listen up, everyone: we know you all have questions, so let’s talk about the terms guys and you guys.
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