I have always felt that the word "guys" is gender neutral despite having been told otherwise by many different people from many different walks of life (I just read an article recently about how a new teacher was put down by a veteran for his over use of "guys" when talking to his class (containing both guys and gals presumably). Somehow I just can't shake my own usage of "guys" to mean both genders. However, just recently, I've had a couple of revelation about the word "guys":
1) My favorite show as a kid was PBS's "The Electric Company" (Morgan Freeman's original role!). I only recently recalled the show's opener: "hey you guys!" I knew even back then that the show was shouting out to girl fans as well as boy fans!
2) Guy Fawkes Night. Ever hear of that one? I hadn't - but when someone mentioned participating in one this November 5, I googled it to find out what was behind the mask. Turns out this "Guy" is the origin of the word 'guy'. We call guys 'guys' because this Guy Fawkes is so famous. He went from real person to effigies which were made and sold to be burned on Nov 5. to being synonymous with raggedy persons of ill repute to being a general non pejorative term for men to (and I quote webster's online) "used in plural to refer to the members of a group regardless of sex"
Now that is an evolution in usage! I think I won't beat myself up too much over calling a group of people "guys" any more. All language is contextual, right, guys?
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