Girl

[prog]

Already rethinking earlier statement about the word "girl". To go against college-indoctrinated language lessons feels like a tiny act of sacrilege, and invites a deal of internal debate. Here is an excerpt:

jmac: After all, there are plenty of contexts where I could legitimately use "boy" in reference to an adult male.

strange interlocutor: Fair enough, but what about that context in the cafe? if you'd been served your coffee by a man, would you have written "the boy who..."? No, you'd have written "the guy who...", and I resist your sexist equivalence of the ambiguous "guy" with the diminutive "girl". Shame shame shame on you.

jmac: [Mumbles, shuffles feet.]

This is an old argument and I back away from having an official opinion on it for today.

Comments

[daerr.livejournal.com]

I was raised such that it really doesn't usually occur to me to use "girl" for anyone older then a teenager. Though, given common language ususage I've probably done so at times.

I remember all of my mother's battles to get her co-worker's to stop them from referring to each other as "girl". Mind you, this was more of self image thing...

[daerr.livejournal.com]

The more I think about it... I think that I normally only use girl in compounds. (For instance, "fangirl" which is the natural opposite of "fanboy".)