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From: neal@weitek.UUCP (Neal Bedard)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: "Guys" is to "<?>" as ...
Message-ID: <263@weitek.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Aug-85 00:13:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: weitek.263
Posted: Fri Aug 30 00:13:23 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Sep-85 05:03:49 EDT
References: <20800001@ada-uts.UUCP>
Organization: Weitek Corporation, Sunnyvale
Lines: 29

In article <20800001@ada-uts.UUCP>, richw@ada-uts.UUCP writes:
> 
> I have a simple (?) question.
> 
> I've been stumbling over my words recently when referring to
> members of the femalian gender.  I feel comfortable referring
> to the males I know of as "guys", but lack an appropriate word
> for the females I know (even that doesn't sound right, for some
> reason).  The problem is that "guys" is a nice middle-ground
> between "boys" and "men".  What is the equivalent between
> "girls" and "women"?
> 
> Rich  "New-To-The-Net-So-Have-Mercy"  Wagner

"Gals". "Guy" and "gal" are both fairly low diction, slang-ish words, maybe
appropriate for conversation, but not in writing unless the nature of that
writing is informal (this sounds like a job for William Safire :-))

I like to use "folk" informally, myself, since this tends not to subdivide
the people I am describing along gender lines, unless I explicitly mean to.

Gee, if "guys" is the `middle', does it separate the men from the boys????


-Neal

-- 
"whaddya mean there were bullet-holes in his mirror..."
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