What We Say

I was thinking earlier about things that girls can say to guys, and it’s just fine, but if a guy were to say it to a girl, it would be seen as incredibly creepy. And then that got me thinking about the thing that a number of you, who don’t see the forest as a whole, but instead, focus on the one tree you have an issue with, have probably already seized upon.

I said “girls” and “guys” instead of “women” and “men.” And, of course, to refer to any female over the age of 18 as a girl is “demeaning.”

But linguistically, it’s so much more complicated than that. We have the legality of adulthood mixed up with perception of youth (or relative youth), and the whole alliteration thing to deal with. How do we handle this?

I don’t know if I can work this out to everyone’s satisfaction, but I’m gonna try as best I can; knowing that some people will still disagree with me.

Yes...technically, at age 18, you’re no longer children (although you have to wait until 21 to buy beer), and thus, no longer girls and boys. But do the terms “girl” and “boy” of necessity only refer to children? What about “girls’ night out”, or “boys’ night out”? Some of those girls and boys are in their 40s and older. But more specifically, we don’t tend to use “boys” all that often when talking about males in general. We use the “ageless” term “guys.” This gets us to that alliteration thing.

With girls and guys we’ve got two terms that both begin with the letter “g.” It’s a parallel structure. It trips off the tongue more easily. And so we use it.

So now we’ve got girls and guys. I’ve already mentioned that “guys” is a pretty much “ageless” term for any male. Is there something similar in regular English for females? Well yes...and it just happens to be “girls.” Why isn’t there a totally different term for ageless females like there is for ageless males? There used to be...it was “gals” (there goes that alliteration again).  But for some reason, it’s fallen into disuse over the years. And as linguist John McWhorter will tell you, language doesn’t always behave logically.

But why not just use “women” and “men” for anyone over the age of 18? This brings up issues of youth, and relative youth. I don’t know about you, but “women” and “men” makes me think of older people...people who are at least in their 30s. And actually, when I looked up discussions of “girl vs woman” and “guy vs man” online, I found that each of the former terms is generally used to refer to young women and young men...with young being defined as under 30. Fascinating...no one ever actually teaches you this distinction, but it’s one that most of us instinctively know.

But another article pointed out something so obvious that most of us don’t even notice it…”girls” and “guys” are informal terms we use for talking about people. They’re the terms we use when referring to them colloquially. If we were talking about someone past high school or college age formally, we’d likely refer to them as women and men. But while they’re in school, it’s girls and guys. Referring to a person on a college campus who is a student, and not a faculty or staff member, as a woman or man, seems kind of affected and pretentious.

And then comes the thing that makes this whole issue so darned difficult in the first place...there’s not even agreement among women about what they want to be called and when. It’s not like there’s one monolithic voice out there saying “We always only want to be called women.” There isn’t, and there are enough women out there who use the term “girls” to refer to themselves that you just never know when you’re going to hit that nerve with someone.

But getting back to my original point, did you ever notice that there are some things a girl can say to a guy and it’s just fine...and even cute, but if a guy said it to a girl, we would all just go “Eeew”?