Guys & Ladies

This morning’s Today Programme included an item on a Women’s Institute group of songsters. Sarah Montegue addressed the group as ‘you guys’, but at the end of the piece spoke of them as ladies. Is this a sign of Montegue’s confusion, or news of a liberal WI policy towards hermaphrodites?

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Author: tomkilcourse

A sceptical Mancunian who dislikes pomposity and rudeness.

31 thoughts on “Guys & Ladies”

  1. I think it’s more a current usage thing, Tom – inclusive language and all that crap. Even I address my team collectively as ‘guys,’ ladies included.

  2. It is a disgusting Americanism that has jumped the pond!

    Actually it annoys me so much I have walked out of several places here, mainly restaurants where spousal unit and I have been addressed as ‘guys’.
    I have been moved to ask whether their eyesight is deficient, why they think I am a transvestite and what makes them think my partner is queer?
    Somewhat crisply! As I head for the exit.
    It staggers me that restaurants do not/will not/cannot train their staff any better than that.

    Trust the BBC to assiduously collect the worst of American culture!

  3. bravo, you shouldn’t, its rude and insulting to a lot of us. (Generally half!)
    People in a subservient position generally decline to register their upset with such things, they probably want their job and do not want to alienate you, that doesn’t make it right.
    You wouldn’t make a racial slur to some coloured employee or say ‘Oy raghead’ to anyone, why make a sexual slur to half the work force?

  4. Tina, I think you are a little behind the curve on this one – ‘guys and gals’ would likely cause much more offence in this PC age of ours.

  6. You can never go wrong with ladies and gentlemen!
    Such a shame manners have been allowed to disintegrate so, it makes a far uglier world.
    Frankly, I do not want to be anywhere near ‘a curve’, gender bending confusion is not up my street!
    Guys and gals sounds a bit to West Side Story!
    Go the whole hog ‘Guys and Dolls’!!!
    Meanwhile no bloody minion is ever going to address me as a guy and get away with it whilst I am still able to deliver an evil verbal stinging rebuke at a seconds notice.
    The WI should have had her guts for garters on air. Would have made far more amusing listening.

  8. Ah, Tina, but I am not a minion 🙂 In general, there are two kinds of occasions when my team gets addressed as ‘Ladies and Gentlemen.’ When they are being praised for doing something extraordinarily well, (‘exceptional is run of the mill…) and when they are about to get a major bollocking, if you’ll excuse my bluff, soldierly expression.

  9. bravo, point is that if you are on the topside of society and have people working for you then you have a far greater obligation to observe the niceties of social and business interaction to them and you are on the topside.!
    How do you know the women do not mind being addressed as guys?
    Perhaps you should ask them.

  15. Well remembered sipu!

    I still think ladies and gentlemen or the more formal sir and madam are by far the safest alternatives for people with whom you are not intimate!
    At least you know you cannot drop yourself in it from a great height with such terms.

    God preserve me from the ‘inclusivity’ of so called modern society.
    Enough to make anyone run screaming for the hills.

    Bravo, I await the results of your poll with great interest.

  16. What’s wrong with the word “colleagues”, Bravo, even if you are the boss? You all work together. Of course we could settle for the Hemmett’s odd word “peeps”, which I’m told is short for people. Good for you Christina. Those who earn their living serving customers have to earn it by treating said customers courteously.

  17. My usual greeting to the class was “Morning Maggots”. I could never be accused of discriminating on gender race or sexual preference.

  18. sheona, I used to refer to my people as colleagues, but address them individually by name, or collectively in meetings as ‘you’. Many English people in France have difficulty with the French vous and tu.

  19. I read somewhere that some French companies have staff who prefer to speak English, thus avoiding the tu and vous problem. Of course there is the same problem in German and Italian. I was always taught that it is for the elder person to decide when the familiar form can be used. I have always left it up to the native speaker to mention it – even as I get older!

  20. Being of a thespian bent (unfortunate word), Backside addresses his team as ‘loves’. Isn’t that preferable?

  21. Had a quick check round with female members of the team back in the old country. (Russia 🙂 No objections there – didn’t think anything about it. Interesting that all the collective nouns equivalent to what we have above are masculine in Russian, Romanian and Serbian – probably the same in the other Slavic languages, I’d guess.

  24. Romanian has ‘tu’ and ‘vous’ forms, ‘tu’ and ‘voi’ and also a highly formal form, ‘dumneavoastra,’ which is always used on first meeting someone, or addressing someone you don’t know.

  25. It doesn’t surprise me at all bravo, women who allow such mode of address are desperately trying to conform into a man’s world. Hardly surprising that they become such inadequate women with desperate identity crises and have very low self esteem, seen it far too often.

    Very few women have ever handled sexual equality well, witness how few are in the boardrooms even today.
    Just now and again one meets ‘a lady’ with the ‘don’t fuck with me’ light flashing in clear warning.
    Most don’t and certainly resist the impulse to call her a guy! (A generally inferior species in my book as you have probably realised by now!)

    Totters off stage left having amused herself.

  29. bravo, that I can believe!
    But you only have to look at the agonising on women’s sites to realise their are gross crises of confidence in themselves.
    Not that I make a habit of doing so, not my style!

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