A Penny for the Old Guy

Guy  Fawkes burned in effigy.

Years ago, I was accused on a mixed email list of excluding women for referring to the others as “you guys. This surprised me. “Guys” is informal; but where I come from, it regularly refers to both sexes, This recent piece in Salon confirms that I am right; Merriam-Webster agrees with me, along, it says, with most dictionaries. At the same time, the article repeats some obvious howlers about the supposed maltreatment of women in our society. Got to repond.

First of all, if “guys” for many years referred only to men, this is not, as claimed, a compliment to men. It is a compliment to women. The origin of the term, after all, is the most notorious traitor in English history, a person burned in effigy annually. Later, according to the article, "guy" was muted to anyone “dresseed up in a grotesque costume,” as these effigies commonly were. All very well to refer to males in such generically extremely insulting terms, but women were entitled to greater respect. No doubt one also would not refer to the lord of the local manor as a “guy.”

The piece notes that terms for males commonly become generic, but not terms for women. “Men would not tolerate it,” the article says. This presupposes that men are in charge of language, an untruth the article itself goes on later to dispel, apparently without realizing it, Being generic is not a terribly desirable goal.. Terms for princesses are also not generic. A Korean of my acquaintance said once she hopes she is never introduced to the President of Korea. The grammar necessary to speak to him is so esoteric she has never used and does not know it, although she is a native speaker.

Execution of Guy Fawkes for treason

Is this proof the President of Korea is oppressed?

Later, the article notes the truth that “young women often spearhead linguisticc change.” This is an empirical fact, demonstrable empirically. And it means that in this crucial aspect of human society, in all cultures, women are dominant, Womem also tend to adopt the dialect of the class of men above their own menfolk, while men speak in a dialect a class lower than the women with which they associate. In other words, women are commonly understood, or at least understand themselves, to outclass and socially outrank any men with whom they are in contact.

It is amazing that feminism has for so long been able to invert the significance of all this into its very opposite. The devil at work again,

This works because those who have done wrong, which is to say all of us, commonly, rather than accept and repent the fault, try to obscure it with the lie.And the safest lie is the very opposite of the truth.

John 3:19: This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

Feminism is and has from the beginning been a cover for sexual immorality.