this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Just like ‘mankind’ right? (/s)
Sure, language is changing and guys has been veering neutral since the 70s. But claiming the word is outright “non-gendered” is incorrect imo.
Merriam-Webster would like to disagree with your assertion that it is not "non-gendered"
Thanks to @Mobilityfuture@lemmy.world for the link in https://lemmy.ml/comment/7077751 (I don't know if I could make that link in a better way)
I agree that "guys" is not a gendered term but I don't like your argument.
Definitions of words can be very different to how people use them, and we shouldn't constrain the use of words to their definitions.
I disagree that we shouldn't constrain the use of words to their definitions. It's what helps make the meaning of sentences the most clear for everyone. If people had actually done that then the definition of "literally" wouldn't include "figuratively" and a lot of misunderstandings could be avoided.
Otherwise we could end up with people saying that when they wrote "all white people deserve to die" what they actually meant was that they deserve to live, since that's how they use the word "die". It's nonsensical to me.
Kind of a bad example, because mankind very clearly stems from 'humankind'. And people are lazy and prefer using short words. The unfairness is rather that women got stuck with the words requiring more characters. But that is a phenomenon of the English language and not present in others.
However, in most languages the words for man/male are closer to human(kind) than female/woman, which very clearly shows the historic patriarchal influence, coming back around to your point after all.
Interestingly enough, in old English you had "werman" and "wifman" for man and woman respectively, in which case referring to all with "mankind" makes perfect sense. So the originator for mankind seems more likely to be from that than the explanation that it's a shortening of "humankind" to me.