Maybe that’s a better translation. I’m more comfortable with my Spanish than with my English 
Edit: Couldn’t let it go. Toda esa gente.
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Except, a doctor may need patience, but that’s not the clientele.
And a teacher doesn’t have a studence.
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I’m very rusty on my spanish. Truth be told, if I were to try to speak it right now, I’d sound like a demon-baby-hillbillie.
What’s neat/amusing is how readily Chinese exchange students who move to the Southern United States will sometimes pick up “y’all.” It corresponds fairly perfectly to “nimen” which is the plural you in Mandarin.
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In Castillian Spanish “ustedes” is the right way to address politely a group of persons, also genderless.
“Vosotros” is used regularly when addressing a group of know people in an informal way. According the the Real Academia de la Lengua, although gendered (vosotros/vosotras), the right plurar for a mixed group is “vosotros.”
In the last decade it has become common in some progressive circles to address gendered professions or groups including both the male and female versions. It is seen even by left wing as a little too much politically correct and a bit cheesy.
“Estimados ciudadanos y ciudadanas, hoy hemos presenciado…”
“Dear male and female citizens, today we have seen…”
According to the Real Academia de la Lengua, as a rule of thumb, the right way to address a mixed group is referring it as it’s common name… BUT if this group has an specific name you should address it by that name’s gender, lets see:
A group of policemen: Un grupo de policías
(Policía is feminine, but group is masculine)
A lion pack: Una manada de leones
(Lion is masculine, but manada is feminine)
Yes, it is confusing for non Spanish speakers. This language is hard.And don’t let me even start with verb conjugation!
PD: The voice “Vos” is considered archaic, and used only when talking like a Shakespeare/Cervantes era character.
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I think y’all is perfectly fine when not drawn out. When visiting my Texas kin, I find it becoming y’aaaaal, and yes, I sound like I just hopped off a horse. But colleagues from the East Coast pick it up within a couple of years, say it quickly, and they sound fine.
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Maybe it’s both!
Yeah, the way I explain my aversion to the term “Latino” is…
What do you call a roomful of 50 adult females from Latin America? Latinas.
What do you call a roomful of 50 adult females and one teenage male from Latin America? Latinos.
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I wonder if there’s a connection there. Total speculation on my part, obviously, but could that have been the vector that brought “guys” to so many parts of the U.S. in a certain generation?
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My 3yo daughter says “guys” a lot. Also ends her sentences with “hunh” a lot.
“So, guys, are we going to the park, hunh?!”
“Guys, I was talking to grammy, hunh?!”
“Guys, I can’t find Princess Lemon, hunh?!” [Princess Lemon is from a playset; she is the only toy that Eenut has ever named; no idea why she decided on “Lemon” … other than the blond hair?]
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I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that your pet name for her when she was very little was “Peanut” and she couldn’t quite pronounce it so now the in-joke in the family is that you use “Eenut” instead.
Am I close?
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Ackshually, her older brother was pronouncing “Anna” as “Eena” and “banana” as “beena”, so we took the next logical step* and started calling her “Eena Beena.” Then his clanging phase started** and “Eena Beena” transformed into “Eenut Beenut” which was then shortened to “Eenut.”
We call him Monkey because was super-curious (“unlike any other baby, ever”) as a baby. Confusion has reigned ever since, since I am also called “Uncle Monkey” by my nieces and nephews, as my eldest niece pronounced “Michael” and “Monkey” the same as a wee tot. He was called Peanut for a while, and I used the Hungarian nickname “Misi” (pronounced “Mee-shee”) but nobody else used it but me.
The youngest has a plethora of nicknames – Anthony has become Anthanoodle, Anfanoodle, Anfony, Ant-man, Baby Anthony, Anthababby, and Babby Cakes. Monkey strongly resisted my referring to Anthony as “babby” (this just started a month ago, don’t ask me why, I never did it with any baby before) - “He’s not a babby! He’s a baby!” - but fell in love with “Babby Cakes” this past weekend (as in “Babby Cakes, Babby Cakes, Babby Man, bake me a babby as fast as you can”).
Words is fluid.
* our logic, maybe not everybody’s else’s.
** hasn’t stopped. He loves the sound of language.
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I give this guy lots of leeway… he’s writing a book on bluegrass in Japan and plays mandolin:
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I use ‘guys’ a lot, meaning it non-gender-specifically. If I’m referring to a group of males, I tend to say ‘blokes’ or ‘fellas’ (Aussie slang FTW). But then again, I often refer to my sisters as ‘bruvva’. Can’t quite remember why I started doing that. In any case, if I’m talking to a mixed gender group or females who may be offended by my use of ‘guys’ then I just say ‘everybody’ or ‘everyone’.
I tend to shy away from ‘guys’ these days because of this reason, and instead have had to resort to such awkward words as ‘folks’.
I do not think it is the ‘default’ for people who exist in male dominated societies, or all male groups, however. It is one of the few english words to address numerous people at the same time in an informal manner.
In my own circles, this is not a problem, but because of the outlaying problems in the larger cultural context, it has become a problem.
As for ‘the guys section’ comment, that is notable, however words always have varying definitions and meanings.
We can use the same words to people across cultures because there is a fuzzy agreement on the definition, not because there is an exact agreement.
For instance, the word “Idaho” means one set of meanings to someone from Idaho as opposed to someone from Beijing or from Portland.
Or, obviously, another ‘for instance’, the word “smoke” may mean literal smoke, or may be used in a wide variety of metaphoric contexts, as well as alternative literal definitions. Such as ‘to smoke a cigarette’ or ‘do you have a smoke’.
In the US we call ‘apartments’, ‘apartments’, but I would not be phased if an English person uses the term ‘flat’, nor argue that the word can not be used in that manner because ‘it means deflated, not an apartment’.
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Gothic defaults to neuter plural for mixed groups.
No, really. From Wright, A Primer of the Gothic Language, paragraph 295:
When a pronoun stands for two substantives of different genders it is put in the neuter plural, as miþþanei þo wesun jainar, while they (Joseph and Mary) were there…
Gothic, incidentally isn’t that great on other gender stuff, though it’s where I picked up the word “guma” before learning that “guma” was also perfectly good English.
The obvious replacement for “guys” is “party people”. There’s never a situation where it doesn’t fit.
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Addressing a group of women as “ladies” can be flirtatious sounding to my male ear.
Addressing a group of women as “guys” is not flirty, and as far as I know doesn’t seem to bother anyone when used in a gender neutral way. I was born, and continue to spend most of my time near Chicago, in case you’re wondering about regional dialect.
Addressing a group of women who are younger than me as “girls” is less flirtatious, but if the women are all (or mostly) my age or older, can seem condescending.
All told, I usually just go with “guys”, and it generally works out. I have heard women addressing other groups of women as “guys” as well, so I don’t think I’m isolated in my impressions.
Flirtatious, or downright sad?
My husband is ridiculously guilty of this. “Honey, we need to get X done ASAP.” Where X can only be done on a weekday during his work hours and I know he’s not going to take time off to do it.
