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Updated on
20 Jan 2021
- Russian
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English (US)
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Japanese
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Question about English (US)
So "guy" can mean only "man", but "guys" means "people of either sex"?
So "guy" can mean only "man", but "guys" means "people of either sex"?
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20 Jan 2021
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- English (US)
- Dutch
"Guy" and "Guys" both refer to people of the male gender, the only difference being that "guys" is the plural form of "guy".
However, in spoken and informal language many people use "guys" as a general term to refer to people of either gender.
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- English (US)
- Dutch
"Guy" and "Guys" both refer to people of the male gender, the only difference being that "guys" is the plural form of "guy".
However, in spoken and informal language many people use "guys" as a general term to refer to people of either gender.
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- Russian
- English (US)
- Dutch
@mehelek That's actually a good point, you are right.
Reading your question again I would say that "guy" does indeed refer to a person of the male gender (in an informal way), the term "guys" is it's plural and can also be used to refer to people of either gender when you are addressing a group of people.
So for example if I said "the guys were very loud last night" I would probably be talking about a group of boys/men, but if I said "hey guys, listen up" to address a group of people, everyone would know that I mean both male and female (and non-binary) people in said group.
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- Russian
@Dark-Aceofhearts Plural form, "guys", being used as word to get attention, can refer to people of either gender. Could "hey guy" refer to human of either gender? What about "hey dude"?
- English (US)
- Dutch
@mehelek "Hey guy" would probably be considered strange to use for people of either gender and also because the phrase "hey guy" is kind of a strange greeting. "hey dude" on the other hand can totally be used as a greeting, dude is also generally used to mean people of all genders. So yeah, you could totally use "hey dude" when talking to people of whatever gender (as long as they don't mind being called dude, some women might not appreciate it, but still, it's pretty commonly used).
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- Russian
@Dark-Aceofhearts I googled, it seems "hey guy" is used after all, though it maybe sounds old-fashioned? Also what about "hey dudes"? It is not used much?
- English (US)
- Dutch
@mehelek I just googled it as well and I see you're right, it might indeed be old-fashioned. I am not familiar with the phrase, but of course that doesn't mean nobody uses it at all.
I do use the phrase "hey dudes", it's very informal and mostly used among friends or people you know well. It's probably mostly used among younger people.
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- Russian
- English (US)
- Dutch
@mehelek yes that's correct, the same thing I said about dude applies to dudes (both dude and dudes are slang btw, which is what I mean with 'very informal')
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- English (UK)
guys can mean a group of people too.
'come on you guys!' can mean either group of boys or a group of girls or a group of both
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