At risk of turning this into a discussion of the English language... I have to somewhat agree with you. Although, my English teacher would disagree. She would say, that since this is already sexist language (male dominant), the masculine term can also be used as the generic term. The risk of using the language in such a way is sounding sexist (ie- its ok to address a mixed crowd as "gentlemen"). This is much like Spanish, where words that are feminine are for females only, while the masculine words are for men, or a mixed group. But you are right, we need more gender nutral words like "y'all". Off topic question to the people who use "y'all": is the plural to y'all, "all y'all"? Jay On Tuesday 30 October 2001 05:11 pm, you wrote: > hello y'all, > > > I'm amazed there are girls on this list. In fact, I don't see that it > > matters, we're all dorks who just wanna hack. I know if I use the term > > "guys" I mean it more like "y'all" which is what I used to say when I was > > in the service but that sounds funny up here in the north country. > > I personally think "y'all" is a useful linguistic construct, which > otherwise is lacking from the English language. the German 'ihr' means > roughly the same thing as "y'all", and they use it quite a bit. > I fail to see why English should lack a good term for "all of you", > when other languages have it. > > Carl Soderstrom. -- Jay Kline list at slushpupie.com http://www.slushpupie.com -- Let me put it this way: today is going to be a learning experience.