The guys problem

Joe Pinsker writes about the problem with — and without — the word guys:

The problem, for those who want to ditch guys, is that their language doesn’t present them with many versatile replacements; English lacks a standard gender-neutral second-person plural pronoun, like the Spanish ustedes or the German ihr. The alternatives to guys tend to have downsides of their own. Folks — inclusive and warm, but a little affected and forced. Friends — fine in social contexts, strange at work. People — too often pushy and impersonal. Team — its sense of camaraderie wears out with constant use. One might cobble together a mix of pronouns to deploy in different scenarios, but no one term can do it all.

When I was teaching, I defaulted to colleagues and students. In e-mail, for instance: “Hello EN3703 students.”

As for a standard gender-neutral second-person plural pronoun, there certainly was one when I was a kid in Brooklyn: youse.