Informal English usage and possible translation issues

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

Unless it is an regional usage or a recent trend I have never heard that calling a group of women "girls" in an informal situation being labelled rude, at least in Yorkshire. In a more formal situation "ladies" would probably be used as more appropriate..

"Guys" for a mixed group, I have heard but that was only at work in the decade before I retired. It was more usual to address a mixed group as people.

Yorkshire is an amazing place.

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Hmm. I take it you're a man. There's no way it would not feel offensive if you're a woman.

As a woman, back when 'inclusive' language started gaining traction, I greatly disliked the idea that I should deem myself excluded from the generic man/men. Among other things, I felt that it would lead to a greater misreading of older texts, than the assumption that man/men was normally being used in a generic sense would have. Which seems to be true, as I've encountered people who seem to be completely unaware that man/men were ever generic terms for any human being.

I still am annoyed by the idea that I should feel offended even though I have accepted that English has not changed in the direction I would have preferred, partly due to sheer annoyance at the assumption that since I belong to a particular group I should feel a certain way. If I *refuse* to consider myself excluded, if I refuse to consider the probable intent of the author (death to authorial intent!) or accept someone else's assertation that I should feel excluded, that's my business.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by haertig

Does this not open the thread up to a discussion regarding the use of the word "guys" then? I do not see your words above in any way limiting the discussion to the word "men". Quite the opposite actually.

So this thread is about the usage of "guys" OR the usage of "men". ANd that is the way I interpreted it. My use of the word "redirect" was in error, your intention all along was to talk about both words. I'm fine with that. That's exactly how I perceived it. I just stated my sentence to @Sirtel incorrectly.

I should not have said "... the thread got redirected to the word 'guys'". I should have said, "This thread was always about the word 'guys' (and 'men' too)". Sorry. My error.

You've got it mostly correct, but I'm going to have one more go at making clear the precise topic of this thread, which is quite narrow (but do not mean to exclude related discussion):

Is there a non-English word that matches the informal meaning of "guys", as defined in post #1 that gets translated to English as "men" rather than "guys"? So it is not about "men" OR "guys" but BOTH "guys" AND "men" in a specific way.

It turns out that "caras" in Brazilian Portuguese fits. Although I am curious where there are any others, I am too drained and have neglected too many other things to put any effort into finding out.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ekbell

As a woman, back when 'inclusive' language started gaining traction, I greatly disliked the idea that I should deem myself excluded from the generic man/men. Among other things, I felt that it would lead to a greater misreading of older texts, than the assumption that man/men was normally being used in a generic sense would have. Which seems to be true, as I've encountered people who seem to be completely unaware that man/men were ever generic terms for any human being.

Whereas "man" has never meant "human" in many other languages, but always and exclucively a male human. So it may be pretty natural for people for whom English is not a first language to not know "man" once meant "human in general".

For example, I only know this because I've read older English classics. In Estonian, there have always been three separate words for "man", "woman" and "human". No one has ever addressed a mixed group in Estonian as "men", unless they deliberately wanted to address only males.

...if I refuse to consider the probable intent of the author (death to authorial intent!) or accept someone else's assertation that I should feel excluded, that's my business.

How do you know the poster who used "Men" didn't mean to exclude women? They never said they meant "Men" to include any gender. They never explained what they meant at all.

[DNSB]

Generally, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt (well, other than one co-worker who referred to guys, gals and non-binary pals). So if I see men, I will assume that the person is referring to the old non-gendered meaning. OTOH, it is, in most cases, better to use wording that makes it clear even to those who are looking for exclusion, that is likely not there, whom you are referring to though. Oddly, I've found that many people don't seem to like being referred to as "all you zombies".

[haertig]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

How do you know the poster who used "Men" didn't mean to exclude women?

How do you know that they DID?

They never explained what they meant at all.

Normally, you don't explain what you meant until after someone has misunderstood it. I realize that I am probably the exception to that rule. I often times explain as I go along by using sub texts in parenthesis or delimited by commas or dash marks. This is a bad habit on my part and I need to change it. It usually doesn't help anything since nobody appears to read the sub texts anyway and it just makes my posts overly long, confusing and boring. (I'll tell you, it was very tough for me to not add any commas, parenthesis of dashes to that last sentence - oops!, there I go again!)

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by haertig

How do you know that they DID?

It would appear that presumption of guilt rather than presumption of innocence is being applied.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

It would appear that presumption of guilt rather than presumption of innocence is being applied.

Well, there are some circumstances justifying this. The poster saying "chill" to a request not to use the word "Men" as a form of address here, for example. Yes, they were probably being defensive, but why not explain what you actually meant, if you see others have (presumably) misunderstood you?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by haertig

How do you know that they DID?

I don't.

Normally, you don't explain what you meant until after someone has misunderstood it.

It must have been pretty clear people took offense at the word "Men". If that was a misunderstanding, why not explain? The fact is, as no explanation was given, everyone is free to interpret it in any way they want.

In all honesty, yes, I too think it was probably a translation error or something like that. But until the actual meaning has been explained, we don't know for sure.

[Arconte]

I am really astonished by all this thread....

If this all is because of an intellectual curiosity, and there is the willing to understand how different languages use coloquial terms in order to do a comparision and be overwhelmed by the richness of languages, then is it ok.

BUT, if this post is to... let's say, to establish which are the correct ways to address eachother respectfully, to not be "mean" without noticing and to how to start a thread, then it couldn't be more wrong. If this is the reality, which I hope it is not, I picture Sheldon Cooper looking absolutelly focused at the deeps of the screen, trying to write the most rational point to try to discover what's hidden in the unscrutable valley of emotions and social interactions

The solution it is very simple: One have to assume people with whom is interacting in a forum, specially a forum dedicated mostly to books and book's reading devices, is people that is there willingly to get along with each other. Also, to assume all that people is from around the world and have different ways of speaking, thinking and, of course, personalities. If points 1) and 2) are clear, then the forum open itself as a place of concord and happines, and when there is something one don't understand the meaning of, he/she/it doesn't get angry instantly, because his/hers/its mind would first think probably it is nothing rude, because, why would someone be rude in a books forum?

There will be always time to clarify if is there a reason to get angry or not, but being the first option it is not very... social assertive. Also, obviously, the clarifying question can't be done with passive aggressiveness, or directly aggressiveness, as this is a way to say "You better explain yourself! Because you offended me" If things are asked with this mood, the (involuntary) damage is already done, and everything would get worse

There is no other solution than that, because the only alternative it comes to my mind is to restrict the participation on this forum to people on the same country and to make everyone have the exact same behaviour. It could work, but it would be boring, because life gets enriched by the diversity of people and all the different ways to do the same thing.

I PROMISE I will never start a thread again saying "Men", but I can't promise expressing myself in a way someone here can feel it rude. Of course, I never tried to be rude, nor I am planning to be rude in this forum. If the moment arrives, I make sure you notice it

Bazinga!!!

[Sirtel]

Hmm... lots of talk about how other people should behave. Speaking of rudeness, you don't think your post about not respecting people who listen to audiobooks was rude? That it might have angered other posters? Seems to me you want everyone else to be nice and polite, while you yourself feel free to make provocative and condescending posts and expect others not to respond in kind.

[Arconte]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Hmm... lots of talk about how other people should behave. Speaking of rudeness, you don't think your post about not respecting people who listen to audiobooks was rude? That it might have angered other posters? Seems to me you want everyone else to be nice and polite, while you yourself feel free to make provocative and condescending posts and expect others not to respond in kind.

My statement of non respecint people who listen to books instead of reading them (who obviously dont have any health problem making audiobooks the only way of consuming books [Also to say the need to clarify this is because a will to confront coming from others]) may have sound a little harsh and needed to ask for clarification, for some people, which I ligthly explained later, and just lightly because I didn't want to really offend anyone. For the ones it wasn't necessary an explanation just understood it was a way of talking.

Let's keep it simple
Just chill

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Yorkshire is an amazing place.

I think so but I am biased as I am a Tyke.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

I think so but I am biased as I am a Tyke.

Is that a Barnsley supporter? Found via search as I don't remember seeing that word before.
I'm sad that the local shops have stopped stocking Yorkshire tea, though I don't believe it's grown there.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Arconte

...

BUT, if this post is to... let's say, to establish which are the correct ways to address eachother respectfully, to not be "mean" without noticing and to how to start a thread, then it couldn't be more wrong. If this is the reality, which I hope it is not, I picture Sheldon Cooper looking absolutelly focused at the deeps of the screen, trying to write the most rational point to try to discover what's hidden in the unscrutable valley of emotions and social interactions

The solution it is very simple: One have to assume people with whom is interacting in a forum, specially a forum dedicated mostly to books and book's reading devices, is people that is there willingly to get along with each other. Also, to assume all that people is from around the world and have different ways of speaking, thinking and, of course, personalities. If points 1) and 2) are clear, then the forum open itself as a place of concord and happines, and when there is something one don't understand the meaning of, he/she/it doesn't get angry instantly, because his/hers/its mind would first think probably it is nothing rude, because, why would someone be rude in a books forum?

...

To me, if I was to take your quote to heart, I wouldn't start off my first post in a thread with "I can't respect ...".

It is hard for me to reconcile your first paragraph above with:

Personally, I can't respect so much people who listen audiobooks It is like there is something they didn't undestandx. Reading it is not just the adquiring of information, it is the whole process of concentrating enough to read and understand the words, to dive into the scenes the book is creating, to catch how the author wrote every sentence in order to express everthing the way he/she wanted, etc To just listen to an audiobook is like joining the reading experience with consumism.

If someone wants to get distracted, he/she can go to watch series and lose their time, but it he/she wants to have a present moment, must catch a book.

That's all I wanted to say