hey man

Bill in Los Angeles is wrong, because the meaning of the word 'man' has clearly changed as has 'guy' and now can refer to either sex, 'man' when used to address someone informally and 'guys' to refer to a group of people.

'Man' has always had ambiguous meaning anyway. "Man will never succumb to the forces of the Deceptikonz".

Guest is wrong. Bill is correct. Only rarely will you hear women refer to one another as "man." They usually use terms like "sweety" or "love" or just "girl."

I usually use dude/bro when talking to guys and "chica" when talking to girls, but that's not widespread throughout the US; I'm the only one of my friends that uses "chica" with frequency (at least when speaking English, I suppose, I referred to a friend or two of mine in Germany any "chicas" and they did not understand why I would bother giving them a pet name like that).

Bill in Los Angeles - exactly mate. I decided to leave this thread alone after RIDICULOUSLY getting accused of being sexist for simply saying that there were certain words that, in my opinion, were more appropriate for a man to use than a women and vice versa. I'm a bloke and I just wouldn't use word's such as "sweetie" or "hun" - no bloody way!!

Also, I still say that hearing a women use words such as "dude", "man", "mate", "bruv", "bro", etc etc just aint cricket, but that is purely MY opinion.

Nice one geezer, you've restored the faith.

<,Bill in Los Angeles is wrong, because the meaning of the word 'man' has clearly changed as has 'guy' and now can refer to either sex, 'man' when used to address someone informally and 'guys' to refer to a group of people.

'Man' has always had ambiguous meaning anyway. "Man will never succumb to the forces of the Deceptikonz". >>

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No. "man" is used for males.
"Guys" can be used for a mixed group of men and women, but a purely female group would be referred to and addressed as "ladies" (eg. "Hello, ladies")

Guest, you are clearly not making headway in trying to 'change the world'. People are not as easily influenced on this forum as you might think.

Great posts. I'm glad out British mate is back in the thread and I like Skippy's use of "chica". I live in Socal and have lots of friends of Mexican, south American or Central American dsecent. I use "chica" too sometimes. Also, for women who are close friends, and my sisters, I use "babe", which for my generation is kind of the feminine form of "dude".

Of course, it's sexist to call chicks babes.

As for the guest who says that "man" has clearly changed to refer now to both genders, I suspect he or she is not a native English speaker and/or doesn't live in an Anglophone country, and has perhaps heard this from a professor somewhere. While it's true that "man" is used to refer to "mankind" in general, that's a completely different issue from the use of "man" as slang.

I heard a comedian say, "Trying not to stare at a traffic accident is like trying not to say "man" when you're stoned."

lol in my generation (I was born in 1984) "babe" is pretty much exclusively used as a pet name for a girlfriend or boyfriend.

Oh, wow. Just thinking about a girl saying "Hey, man," to another girl makes me cringe. I have NEVER heard that done. Ever. There are two ways (off the top of my head) that this phrase is used in my area:

1. As a greeting, from a male to another male. "Hey, man!" It is not dissimilar to "Hi, how's it going?" in that it is just another way to acknowledge someone's presence.

2. A phrase used to calm/soothe someone on the brink of doing something he shouldn't, and not usually left by itself. As in, "Hey, man; we're all friends here. There was no reason to punch Bob in the nose, so please don't do it again." Or perhaps, "Hey, man, we all have problems. Come down off of that ledge."

Females here do not call each other man; however, if I were to meet a group of girlfriends for lunch and I was last to arrive, I would say "Hey, guys; sorry I'm late!" I would not call just one of my girlfriends "guy," though.

Someone mentioned earlier that females call each other "girlfriend," among several other horrible pet names. There was a time, about ten years ago, in which women went around calling each other "girlfriend," but in this area (not including the inner city) it was simply a fad, and fewer than five years, if that. On rare occasions I do hear a woman greeting another woman with a "Hey, girl!" but not often.

As mentioned before, we do say "guy," but we do not call each other "guy." We also do not call each other "dude," except as an exclamation of surprise, as in "Dude! No way!"

The following are the more common female-to-female greetings in my area:

Hi.
Hey.
Hello.
What's up?
How are you?
How's it going?
How have you been?

Oops. I meant to say that the fad LASTED fewer than five years.

That still sounds difficult. I'm used to my Chinese PC, so I'd better avoid using them at all, until I've heard them for 100 times... I don't want to sound sexist, either.

Or should I use sir and madam all the time? I find it difficult to get rid of an accent, without any real-place immersion, because I'd be left with no language at all. I use sir and madam all the time like salesgirls I've seen in my life. Oh, sorry, I can't learn your language very well... I can't learn a language well because I can't think in this language, when I've never seen its world at all, mentally.

Phew!! I am very glad another American also feels the same way I do regarding girls using "hey man" as a greeting - I started to doubt my self there, thank god it isn't a wide-spread phenomena in the US!!

Regarding the attack on me for saying that in my opinion there are words that are more appropriate for girls than guys, I mean, blimey, that's tantamount to saying someone is sexist because they say that there are clothes that are for men and there are clothes for women - I mean there are aren't there?? Does that make me sexist?? No it bloody well doesn't!!

Here's another word women would never use and if they did I would get going sharpish - that word is "Geezer", yeah, that great cockney word (my favourite) that is sadly in decline, a women just would NEVER say that word EVER!!

<<if I were to meet a group of girlfriends for lunch and I was last to arrive, I would say "Hey, guys; sorry I'm late!" I would not call just one of my girlfriends "guy," though.>>

See, I really dislike this usage of "guys" as a gretting to a unisex group and I REALLY dislike the use of it when greeting a group made up entirely of girls, I mean they are not guys they are girls so call them girls - what's so hard about that??

Up until 3-4 years ago you just never heard this at all here in England, I mean NEVER!! But now it's everywhere - definitely a pet hate of mine. To me it is so quintessentially American, and when an American uses it sounds completely natural, but listening to my fellow countrymen saying it sounds ridiculous, equal to hearing Americans suddenly using "wanker" or "bloody" all the time (and I do mean ALL the time) - for me, it just ain't right. Yeah your probably right - i'm a miserable git.

>>See, I really dislike this usage of "guys" as a gretting to a unisex group and I REALLY dislike the use of it when greeting a group made up entirely of girls, I mean they are not guys they are girls so call them girls - what's so hard about that??<<

Because "you guys" is a true pronoun in many dialects, and second person pronouns in English dialects are simply not gendered - and if "you guys" is genderless, then the use of "guys" by itself is likely to become so as well by analogy. I do not see the point of trying to artificially change the *second person plural pronoun* in use in a wide range of dialects just to satisfy those who for some reason cannot accept such.

What is wrong with it? English is just going the way of countless other languages.. In Spanish there can be 100 girls and just 1 male but even so it is compulsory to use the masculine form when referring to the group of them all. It's the natural way the language is. Spanish women have got over this long ago. English women wll have to as well.

>>Up until 3-4 years ago you just never heard this at all here in England, I mean NEVER!! But now it's everywhere - definitely a pet hate of mine. To me it is so quintessentially American, and when an American uses it sounds completely natural, but listening to my fellow countrymen saying it sounds ridiculous, equal to hearing Americans suddenly using "wanker" or "bloody" all the time (and I do mean ALL the time) - for me, it just ain't right. Yeah your probably right - i'm a miserable git.<<

I do have to agree though that it sounds really ridiculous or, alternatively, really pretentious (e.g. in the case of Madonna) when North Americans try to sound like Britons...

My vote is for pretentious.

Just what would the motive be behind any desire of an American to assume a British accent? Likewise in the case of any Brit wishing to assume an American accent. Pretentious indeed, as would be any such desire to adopt any accent other than the one natural to any individual by nationality, region or locality into which you were born and brought up.

Madonna's "British accent" would not really endear herself to her neighbours anyway in wherever it is in England she lives (or used to live as I don't know if she's still resident down there). I have an idea it's down Dorset/Wiltshire way but I may be wrong without checking which I ain't gonna do..... (see - I'm forsaking my own native Edinburgh Scottish accent for an American one now! As if....... :-) What I do know is that she acted like some tyrannical Lady of the Manor in the picturesque little village she chose to live in down there - seclusive in her spacious 17th century mansion surrounded by gorgeous English countryside, some of which belongs/belonged to her, and she even attempted to ban the local people from walking across the land on long established pathways and bridleways (for horse riders) as had their ancestors done for hundreds of years.

However, Lady Madonna's high handed, arrogant action failed, and the public were given carte blanche to walk/ride across her land as long as they kept to the pathways/bridleways, this on the order of the local authorities, including the Countryside Commission, under the terms of ancient bylaws which even a self celebratory upstart of an American singer/actress couldn't overturn.

So even if Lady Madonna tried her level best to speak even more cut glass Regal RP English English than the Queen of England herself she would no way curry any favour with the local people in that little village down there in the South of England. The British (English) accent Her Ladyship would try and adopt would just have to be the only one most Americans would be aware of anyway, wouldn't it? I can't imagine her trying on the Estuaryised RP English English of the youth of that little village down there in those gently rolling green pasturelands.