if you call everyone dude and a transfem person gets mad about it, don't get defensive. just say like "sorry, i won't do it again" and don't argue "actually it's gender neutral" or "i call everyone dude". even if you do, i guarantee she's heard that argument from someone who very much does not call people they see as women dude. i certainly have
same goes double for the word guy.
Comrade_Bones [he/him] - 2.4yr
"Gonna head down to the bar and fuck some dudes."
- Straight men (apparently)
55
Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem] - 2.4yr
-- What's up duuu--
-- [disapproving glare]
-- --uuudayeva. Dudayeva.
-- ...Did you just compare me to Alla Dudayeva, wife of Dzhokhar Dudayev, the first president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria?
-- ...Maybe?
41
Angel [any] - 2.4yr
It's not that hard to be decent and respectful.
All it comes down to is owning up to it.
"Hey, I don't like it when you call me that, so can you please not?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I won't call you that again."
vs.
"Hey, I don't like it when you call me that, so can you please not?"
"Well, have you ever tried not getting offended when I call you that? You're being too sensitive!"
Everyone has their own personal boundaries for comfort, even beyond things like gender. People just like to emphasize forgetting this principle for transgender people to show them as "crazies" and deny them their personhood due to their own hatred.
31
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
yeah. if you say ''sorry, but i call everyone dude'' (which i've seen several times) that isn't an apology! just apologize for accidentally being rude and i guarantee everyone will be chill and you can move on
Hawaiian surfers are absolute chads, the surfers in california just need some aloha spirit beat into their bones
19
SkingradGuard [he/him, comrade/them] - 2.4yr
I wouldn't know, I've never been to any US state.
Good to know if I'm ever near Hawaii though.
14
zed_proclaimer [he/him] - 2.4yr
Hawaii would be so awesome if we could kick out the Mormons and millionaires
16
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
16
Poison_Ivy [comrade/them] - 2.4yr
Only after the east coast is reeducated that being stressed and angry is not a quirky regional culture and midwesterners stop presenting alternating layers of ranch and sour cream as “local cuisine”
3
Des [she/her, they/them] - 2.4yr
oh shit oh fuck i call any plural group of people "guys" when im working and addressing multiple customers
30
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
when it's a plural group of people i don't think it's as big a deal, but it would be good to find an alternative
17
Des [she/her, they/them] - 2.4yr
we need an american version of "comrade"
19
buckykat [none/use name] - 2.4yr
Why not "comrade"?
19
Des [she/her, they/them] - 2.4yr
local rednecks would murder me and local libs would probably think im calling them putin shills
kind of lose lose
17
Crowtee_Robot [he/him, they/them] - 2.4yr
After living in the South I stole "y'all" and I'm not giving it back. No more "dudes", "guys", or even "folks".
17
queermunist she/her - 2.3yr
Y'all is good culture 😌
2
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
just start calling people comrades at work. people would probably find it funny
15
zed_proclaimer [he/him] - 2.4yr
Got to play up a thick Russian accent when you say it too
15
zed_proclaimer [he/him] - 2.4yr
Funny enough a plural group of people being addressed as “guys” or “dudes” is the original source of this discourse, because early feminists were annoyed by being implicitly excluded in the language of people at work and school
17
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
doing it to a group is implicitly excluding women, but doing it to a specific women is explicitly misgendering. personally i wish neither would happen, but when it's the former it's something that happens to cis women too, and while it sucks it's not the worst thing in the world, whereas the latter feels really bad (to me, i understand if others feel differently)
11
ashinadash [she/her] - 2.4yr
"Folks" everytime?
12
Ram_The_Manparts [he/him] - 2.4yr
We love it folks, we love it
10
acockworkorange @mander.xyz - 2.4yr
Fuck, now you made me hate it.
5
Lurker123 [he/him] - 2.4yr
From what I recall, referring to a group of people as “you guys” is a regional thing. I remember in that NY times dialect test that it was one of the questions that nailed me. That said, if I’m referring to group solely of women, it does seem odd, so I usually use party people or peeps in this situation. Using folks or y’all would get weird looks here.
4
Des [she/her, they/them] - 2.4yr
makes sense. i think i say it because i'm originally from the more northern part of the mid atlantic and picked it up younger
2
Great_Leader_Is_Dead - 2.4yr
This is why I address everyone by saying "hey asshole(s)!"
27
Evilphd666 [he/him, comrade/them] - 2.4yr
19
Awoo [she/her] - 2.4yr
The women I speak to about this all essentially boil down to "yeah I don't like it but it's so small I just ignore it" and I can feel hundreds of thousands of feminists turn in their graves each time I get that explanation.
Trans women are good for women for the simple fact that trans women absolutely do not accept all the tiny little things cis women have always just put up with due to a lifetime of it and not wanting their entire existence to always be conflict. Trans people don't have a fucking choice, life is conflict, so fuck it, every little thing shall be fought.
26
SnowySkyes - 2.4yr
I genuinely hope dude falls off heavily in use or disappears entirely. I hate having to explain to people why I'm not very fond of being called "dude"
25
zed_proclaimer [he/him] - 2.4yr
This is anti-surf bum violence
20
drowns [he/him] - 2.4yr
im one of these bros who calls everyone dude.. everyone except the couple transfem people who ask me not to.. it costs me literally nothing and avoids hurting people I care about. Some people have no convictions apart from refusing the be normal decent people.
24
lorty @lemmy.ml - 2.4yr
As someone that does the same, it really is that easy.
9
RION [she/her] - 2.4yr
I am an admitted "calls everyone dude"-er in person, but if someone asked me not to the only conceivable reaction for me is "understandable, have a good day and I will endeavor not to call you that in the future"
Also I was really confused by your last sentence and thought I had missed some discourse on someone referred to as "the word guy"
23
beef_curds [she/her] - 2.4yr
So I don't ever use it out of respect to people who are sensitive to it. But I did grow up with it in my dialect.
Sometimes it isn't even an address in my mind, it's an interjection.
Like when I say, "god, that's so annoying," I'm not addressing the person I'm talking to as my god. That's just an interjection. But if I say dude instead of god, in my conception, I'm still using it as an interjection in that instance. But, of course, it's ambiguous to the listener.
The problem is shitty transphobes use that ambiguity as cover to target people in a way that otherwise well meaning cis people won't pick up on. Then the trans person being targetted is treated as overly sensitive when they complain.
It's a lot like how people use "they" to target people sometimes, even when they know the proper pronouns. On its own, I don't really care if I catch an occasionally "they," and don't consider it misgendering. But then a transphobe comes along and only calls me "they", day after day to target me, then that's harassment. But go to your cis HR and the harrasser's plausible deniability will be taken seriously.
So anyways, I stopped using dude, and you can too. You can have it back when we eliminate transphobes from the face of the earth.
22
Yurt_Owl - 2.4yr
I switched to calling people nerds a long time ago
i see and hear women call eachother "guys" and "dude" pretty regularly even when there are no men in the group so it's not like my highschool spanish where the style guide used to be -os even if there was only one man. I don't think it's legitimate to argue that it's always gendered without getting into microdialects, but neither does that invalidate someone being uncomfortable because sometimes it is still gendered and of course we need to respect them.
21
zed_proclaimer [he/him] - 2.4yr
Language, especially English, is just too complicated for me. I’m at the “fuck it I’ll say whatever you want it makes no sense to me anyway” phase
14
WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them] - 2.4yr
The problem is that when dj crazy times is singing, the people want to make a fun. It's a little bit of a different context so that's why it's not a microagression send post
9
JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair] - 2.4yr
yeah i mean obviously the ESL comedy song isn't a serious position
9
vertexarray [any] - 2.4yr
taken to calling people "gamer" or "gamers"
21
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
addressing any given group of people as "chat"
47
soli - 2.4yr
I don't really have a point but I find it funny that the "dude is gender neutral" debate predates mass awareness of the trans context. It was the first time I had encountered any discourse around misgendering and it was about cis people. I'm drawing a blank on what exactly, but I'm 99% sure I remember it appearing in some pop culture fiction stuff during the 90's too.
20
zed_proclaimer [he/him] - 2.4yr
Yeah it was a rad fem issue regarding men excluding women implicitly in their language (using guys, dude, etc to refer to large groups). It was less about misgendering and more about acknowledging that you were overlooking/ignoring women in the group.
26
JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair] - 2.4yr
meanwhile today you'll catch groups of women and no men using guys and dude to address eachother.
12
Awoo [she/her] - 2.4yr
Interestingly here in the UK referring to a group as "ladies" regardless of men or women being in the group is actually pretty common.
Like "alroight ladiesss how's everyone doin then?" isn't an uncommon phrase you'd here someone say meeting up with a group in the pub.
11
silent_water [she/her] - 2.4yr
it's done here in the states too, usually by a male speaker, when the context is extremely unserious and the audience is presumed to be majority or entirely men.
3
soli - 2.4yr
I wasn't familiar with the rad fem angle, neat.
I'd only personally experienced it in small groups, usually where there were more women than men. There it was definitely more akin to misgendering than the rad fem variant. There was a lot of anxiety about not being "feminine" enough, I think probably because we were teenagers, especially if some women were more likely to get called 'dude' than others in the group. Also a lot of friction about becoming "one of the guys" or getting friendzoned, because again we were horny teenagers.
Horrible time for people presenting in even slightly non-gender conforming ways. I remember when one girl cut her hair short then being relentlessly teased for being a lesbian despite not being one.
8
Balefirex [he/him] - 2.4yr
18
AutomatedPossum [she/her] - 2.4yr
bonus: getting called bro by another trans woman and getting explained how that's a gender neutral term when you're a gamer
18
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
bro is the most gendered term! why are people like this?
16
Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem] - 2.4yr
They say bro so much that their speech is just like bro bro bro bro, we should call them brobrorians or something
15
AssortedBiscuits [they/them] - 2.4yr
Like so many conversations, people are confusing is with ought.
Is:
"Dude" is gender neutral if used as a discourse marker because discourse markers aren't about addressing a particular person, but used in managing the flow of a discussion. It shares commonality with words and phrases like "well," "oh," "I mean," "I guess," "yeah," and so on. Notice how words like "man" and "bruh" can also be used as discourse markers. I suspect what happened was dude/man/bruh was originally just a way to address a male listener and through grammaticalization, it acquired an additional use as discourse markers. But the older way of using dude/man/bruh in order to address a male listener still exists. Ultimately, it's the difference between saying "man, let's get something to eat" and "man, this room is so big." But even then, there's also ambiguous cases like, "man, I'm hungry" which can go both ways as either a discourse marker "man, I'm hungry, I shouldn't've skipped breakfast" or directly addressing a male listener "man, I'm hungry, let's go out to eat."
Ought:
"Dude" ought to not be used as a discourse marker because there are ambiguous cases which causes confusion whether it's being used as a discourse marker or as a form of address. The consequence of this confusion is that non-male people risk being misgendered. It also can be weaponized by transphobes as well. I would say the easiest words to replace them with would be either "homie," which strictly speaking came from "homeboy" although "homegirl" has long since been adopted as well, or "cuz" from "cousin." The main obstacle is that both words are from AAVE and should these words be adopted for general use, it's going to be yet another case of non-Black people stealing words from Black people.
However, it's not just the case of not using "dude" as a discourse marker. It has to be replaced with another word. And in a sense, "dude" itself was the replacement word for "man." "Man, this sofa is fucking heavy." -> "Dude, this sofa is fucking heavy." But what does man/dude/bruh convey in those sentences? I suspect it's to be emphatic, the English equivalent of Japanese よ. Consider "this sofa is X," where X can be any appropriate adjective (heavy, cheap, brown, and so on)
To hesitantly or cautiously express that the sofa is X:
I guess the sofa is X.
I mean, the sofa is X.
Uh, the sofa is X.
To emphatically express that the sofa is X:
Man, the sofa is X.
Dude, the sofa is X.
Bruh, the sofa is X.
To make the sentence sound more natural, you add an appropriate adverb before X to get:
To hesitantly or cautiously express that the sofa is X:
I guess the sofa is kinda X.
I mean, the sofa is kinda X.
Uh, the sofa is kinda X.
To emphatically express that the sofa is X:
Man, the sofa is fucking X.
Dude, the sofa is fucking X.
Bruh, the sofa is fucking X.
Perhaps it's because man/dude/bruh originate as words for addressing men that it acquired its alternative use as a discourse maker used when you want to sound more assertive.
17
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
the linguistic angle here is genuinely fascinating, and relevant to a lot of this discussion. i think that even when used as discourse markers there's an amount of gender that remains attached, but i see what you're saying
i have to say though, that isn't the biggest issue the post was about. it was about being actually called a dude or a guy by people. a lot of the discussion here was about discourse markers but the og post is about people saying like. "hey dude, i'm not misgendering you" in reference to calling a trans woman "this guy" (real example!). very different problem, though i do appreciate your comment for putting a lot of ideas into words
10
AutomatedPossum [she/her] - 2.4yr
i think that even when used as discourse markers there's an amount of gender that remains attached
Yes, absolutely. It's a case of linguistically defaulting to a masculine form. Not gramatically (grammatical gender is largely vestigial in contemporary English outside of personal pronouns), but semantically. This has been mentioned downthread, the original critique of these terms did not come from trans people, but ironically from radfems who opposed this default masculinity under a linguistic determinism angle, much moreso outside of the Anglosphere. For example, this is a major culture war issue in Germany, where reactionaries pretend that grammatically masculine terms, which are still commonly the default in German, are "gender neutral", whereas feminist and trans activists work on establishing actually gender neutral grammar as a new default.
5
Hex [he/him] - 2.4yr
Alternative take that i dont necessarily beleive in but has been bouncing around in my head a while:
In the dialect of the English language my sub-culture typically ascribes to, dude is gender neutral when used as an address, please don't assume I am using language incorrectly because it doesn't follow the rules of your dialect. Would you go to Australia and pear-clutch because someone called you a c*** (in the familiar/genial use of the word)
"actually it's gender neutral" or "i call everyone dude". even if you do, i guarantee she's heard that argument from someone who very much does not call people they see as women dude. i certainly have
this comment is redditor behavior
15
Hex [he/him] - 2.4yr
Yes yes sorry I forgot no one is allowed to be contrarian about anything ever
1
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
i mean you can be a contrarian but when i'm here complaining about transphobia and you come in to play devils advocate, that's redditor behavior. and if you're intentionally being contrarian people are going to be annoyed with you, so you should probably have thicker skin and not immediately start whining when someone gets mad at you
18
Hex [he/him] - 2.4yr
I appologise (un-ironically)
I admit I am still a little debatebro brained, and I did not realize this was the trans specific comm when I first posted, If this is not a space for disagreement, I apologize for inserting my opinion into it.
I do not support intentional or malicious use of bro/guys to misgender, And if anyone in particular were to ask me to stop referring to them as such, I would (and do) try my best to do so.
My goal was to start a productive discussion about the conflict between the take you posted and linguistic descriptivism, which I tend to align myself with and believe is a popular opinion in these circles. I feel justified to discuss this issue as I identify with groups that use bro and dude as a gender neutral form of address, and hence I feel justified to defend myself. once again, if this is not the space for that I apologize, and will remove myself from the discussion, however If anyone would like to have a productive discussion on the topic I am open to changing or refining my opinion.
I also used a poor tone for my goal, and to communicate my dissatisfaction in the response i received, reedit snark is a hard thing to get out of your system.
edit: forgot how formatting worked, broke up brick of text into pieces
3
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
i don't think you don't need to leave or anything, and i appreciate the genuine apology.
i do think it's important to note that a lot of times issues with microaggressions are difficult to parse when you're on the other end, and as mentioned many people see themselves as using bro/dude as gender neutral but very much do not. linguistic descriptivism isn't a bad way of looking at it but i think it's important to try and put yourself in the shoes of the group actually being discussed here and imagine what it looks like from their perspective. very difficult to know what camp someone falls into when talking about it online
9
Hex [he/him] - 2.4yr
You know that's entirely valid. I tend to over-empathize with groups I superficially fall into (such as people who use dude/bro as gender neutral) and assume that their intentions are as innocent as mine, which they may well not be, which leave me dying on the same hill as bigots.
3
WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them] - 2.4yr
If this is not a space for disagreement
Disagreement may be fine (idk, I don't make the rules), but if you repeat the same arguments people have heard a million times from transphobes trying to excuse transphobic behavior in a trans meme community that's an place for trans people to get away from such, doesn't be surprised if you are treated as a nuisance and potentially banned. If someone doesn't want to be called a removed, buddy, dude, etc then don't. Does not matter how you use the words with other people. Its not like people are suggesting we ban people from life for saying dude once.
8
Hex [he/him] - 2.4yr
if you repeat the same arguments people have heard a million times
Really? I thought approaching the dude/bro/buddy issue from a linguistic perscriptivism vs descriptivism perspective was at least a somewhat novel approach, and worth bringing up for discussion if anyone felt comfortable doing so with me.
in a trans meme community that's an place for trans people to get away from such
When I started posting, I thought this was in a general comm, If i was aware I was inserting my opinion in a comm I am guest in as a non-trans person, I would have brought it up more delicately or considered saving it for a general comm. I appologise again if starting this kind of discussion is not welcome here, and if anyone wants me to shut up about it, I will.
If someone doesn't want to be called a removed, buddy, dude, etc then don't.
I wholesale agree with you on this, as I said in the comment you replied to, I do not support intentional or malicious use of bro/guys to misgender, And if anyone in particular were to ask me to stop referring to them as such, I would (and do) try my best to do so. I am not and would never argue in favor of ignoring people's direct wishes on what they want to referred to as.
After my discussions with users in other threads from this comment, I think my personal conclusion is that while from some perspectives the "dude is gender neutral" approach may have legs, the people who use it are usually doing so as an excuse to directly dismiss people's wishes about what they want to be referred to, at best to cling to "being right" and at worst to invalidate people's gender identity or validity as a person, which is cringe.
3
WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them] - 2.4yr
No worries. Just wanted to provide some context. Given you didn't realize where you were posting, its fine. But yeah, you're basically saying the same things as lot of people have dealt with. Memes like this one are common because of how common people get it. The exact details or examples given might vary. This is a problem a lot of communities have to deal with. r/Fuck_cars is another community that had a constant influx of people spamming the same things and surprised when people are rude to them. Even if their arguments aren't mainstream opinions, those types of communities tend to attract those types of people.
Personally, I don't care about dude, but I think gendered language in general is kinda ick and would prefer if all language was gender neutral (but don't push that only others - don't want people thinking I'm one of those people who complain about trans people upholding traditional gender cause that's another all too common argument).
2
AssortedBiscuits [they/them] - 2.4yr
My goal was to start a productive discussion about the conflict between the take you posted and linguistic descriptivism, which I tend to align myself with and believe is a popular opinion in these circles. I feel justified to discuss this issue as I identify with groups that use bro and dude as a gender neutral form of address, and hence I feel justified to defend myself. once again, if this is not the space for that I apologize, and will remove myself from the discussion, however If anyone would like to have a productive discussion on the topic I am open to changing or refining my opinion.
You're conflating is and ought. Descriptivism is only concerned with what a particular language is while everyone here is talking about what a language ought to be. Prescriptivism isn't in opposition to descriptivism in the same exact way is isn't in opposition to ought. When people shit on the Academie Francaise for prescribing some ridiculous word for "seat belt" that no one actually uses, people are actually shitting on a colonial institution that's out of touch with European French speakers never mind Francophones not from Europe. But there are plenty of cases where prescriptivism is useful. The easiest case is on the topic of slurs. If the marginalized community believes a given word is a slur, it doesn't matter if the majority of society doesn't recognize the word as a slur. The word ought to be considered a slur and ought to not be used regardless of descriptivist arguments to the contrary.
3
queermunist she/her - 2.4yr
It becomes a lot more obvious when we're talking about "a dude" or "a guy" because those are absolutely gendered terms. Pluralizing a gendered term probably doesn't make it gender neutral.
Just say folks or yinz or something.
15
LocalMaxima [she/her] - 2.4yr
Pluralizing a gendered term probably doesn't make it gender neutral.
Romance languages in shambles rn
19
TrashGoblin [he/him, they/them] - 2.4yr
There is only one dude, and he is The Dude. All other use of the term is unlawful.
Don't forget chief and champ, those are fighting words in the north too.
5
silent_water [she/her] - 2.4yr
lol the speaker started talking about this during a lecture about unconscious bias training and I immediately checked out, especially because the rest of the lecture had literally nothing to do with implicit bias, even though she kept claiming it did. it was kind of infuriating.
also 100 replies in this thread is extremely sus.
14
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
idk what happened tbh, this was just something that frustrates me and i wanted to complain and then like 20 people made jokes and it ended up on the main page when sorting by hot
Both of these drive me crazy. Its like, why. Also, I just don't know if I'm getting misgendered or not. And it bothers me
12
Lemmygradwontallowme [he/him, it/its] - 2.4yr
Ok, tovarshi/tongzhi-men, instead of guys/dudes...
11
TheDeed [he/him] - 2.4yr
I used to default to calling everyone dude unless they say otherwise. I call my sisters dude. Recently I have learned this is bad.
Luckily I am not a giant baby so it is nbd. I have resolved to not be like a boomer and let my language evolve without complaining
Side note I can understand why people may not want to be called dude. I hate being called "sis" or "girl" by gay dudes, it is both weirdly affirming and incredibly dysphoric all in the same package.
11
dannoffs [he/him] - 2.4yr
The only time I will accept the "dude is gender neutral" argument is if you are from Santa Cruz and we are in Santa Cruz.
11
EllenKelly [comrade/them] - 2.4yr
morelike, dude (derogatory), I feel the same way about mate, I've accidentally blurted out it implies reproduction more than once.
dude likely comes from Yankee Doodle, and later meant something like city slicker, think fancy man, or f#g (politely) 🙄, dont call me dude, bro
If you've seen Easy Rider (1969), you know what happens to Yankee Dudes (they get murdered)
Anyway, I heard women and dudes used the other day and I can't stop laughing about it
10
DanComrd [comrade/them] - 2.4yr
I draw the line at "mate". I get everything else can be and is gendered and thats fine but "mate" is going to be the hill I die on.
As Egon@hexbear.net pointed out, it's more referred to companionship with a friend than reproduction and as others have pointed to and I agree with, if you dont want to be called x then I won't.
6
Skeleton_Erisma [they/them, any] - 2.4yr
I know we're trying to having a serious discussion, but I got distracted by the vriska pfp
10
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
you got a problem with vriska?
8
Skeleton_Erisma [they/them, any] - 2.4yr
Nah, quite the opposite actually. Vriska is cool 😎
10
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
hell yeah
8888)
8
ChestRockwell [comrade/them, any] - 2.4yr
Yeah, that's the thing. I have a friend who's enby and transitioned over the time I knew them. Ran into them earlier this year, and casually dropped a "dude" out of habit/forgetting, and then was like, "is that OK with you?" They're fine with it, but if they ever expressed otherwise I'd do my best not to call them that.
It's not rocket science. Just because I can call a woman "dude" doesn't magically change the meaning of the word.
10
allthetimesivedied [they/them, she/her] - 2.4yr
My dear ex-friend used to call me dude all the time, literally all the time and I loved it so much. And then another former friend, who I blocked because of shit related to this, just had to say some shit to me about this, when I was in the middle of having a meltdown over a fight I was having with them (my ex-friend), and it should’ve been fairly obvious that I didn’t care that they called me dude.
(What made me block him in the end was that, he had met them, and because he’s known me for like 6 fucking years, I asked him to maybe try to talk to them. He didn’t want to because of something petty. He never took my feelings for them seriously. So fuck him.)
9
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
to be clear this is not saying no one can ever call a trans woman dude under any circumstances, it's just that if someone doesn't like being called something then you shouldn't call them that. and while some people use dude or guy gender neutrally, in my experience they're both gendered terms more often than not
13
allthetimesivedied [they/them, she/her] - 2.4yr
Yeah, I get that. I just immediately commented what the title made me think of instead of actually reading the post because I’m an American.
12
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
you know, fair enough. i do that too sometimes
10
CoolYori [she/her] - 2.4yr
I dont really call people dude, but I do say dood at the end of sentences like the Prinnies from Disgaea. It can get confusing so if someone said it stressed them out I would stop.
9
acockworkorange @mander.xyz - 2.4yr
I'm a non native speaker and only officially learned basic grammar pronouns (I to they). All the street pronouns (dude, y'all, pardner) I've learned were from the internet.
What are the best gender neutral street pronouns in current use?
8
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
y'all, all, folks, would all be commonly acceptable. honestly i try to just avoid the matter entirely when possible
9
acockworkorange @mander.xyz - 2.4yr
These are all plural, though.
I'm thinking the case for dude is in expletives and third person references. Like "dude, totally tubular" and "the dude in front of me ordered a coke".
9
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
ohhhh ok, yeah. gender neutral language is hard. usually for the latter i just say 'person' and for the former i just cuss. i do sometimes notice "man" slipping into my speech, like "man that sucked" and i try to avoid it but i'm only so successful. expletives are often less targeted at the conversation partner so it feels less problematic to me but i still think it's generally polite to avoid unless you know someone is chill with it
12
acockworkorange @mander.xyz - 2.4yr
Yeah, I have trouble with it given my limited vocabulary. I'm trying to develop some good habits.
11
Cromalin [she/her] - 2.4yr
10
silent_water [she/her] - 2.4yr
"yo", " hey", "the person", " mate", "buddy", " pal"
going to be honest, though - directing any of these or even "dude"/"my guy" at the person you're talking to is fairly accusatory. you were pointed to the plural forms because they soften the blow.
9
acockworkorange @mander.xyz - 2.4yr
Really? I thought "how are you doing, buddy?" Was more endearing than without the buddy part. Also didn't know mate, buddy and pal were neutral, thanks!
3
silent_water [she/her] - 2.4yr
I was thinking mainly about leading a sentence with them:
"mate, what's going on?"
expresses more concern than
"what's going on, mate?"
4
acockworkorange @mander.xyz - 2.4yr
I can see what you mean. Thanks again!
3
keepcarrot [she/her] - 2.4yr
I think it can be (not always), but if someone is bothered by it I'm not going to bother them about it.
One that annoyed me was saying "man" at the start of sentences. Like "man, this sucks", which seems to me like "Allah, this sucks". I'm not referring to people in the vicinity. But it took me a while to figure out what the annoyance was. Also only one person seemed to think I was referring to them and I stopped around them.
5
MaoTheLawn [any, any] - 2.4yr
Anyone care to share thoughts on bruh and bruh moment?
cos the root is bro, right? Bruh seems like it could be hurtful, but a bruh moment is almost its own thing
4
AutomatedPossum [she/her] - 2.4yr
About as offensive as bro. Yes, i'm aware that it's often not even used to adress somebody directly, idgaf, just don't.
7
IMF_DOOM [she/her] - 2.4yr
fucking with the gender of dude by just randomly throwing in an x somewhere in the word so its like dxde
thought about dvde but it looks too fascist
4
Frogmanfromlake [none/use name] - 2.4yr
Never called people dude because I found it too cringey and try hard. I find it especially weird when I see parents calling their kids that like they’re school buddies and not their parents.
4
linearcurve [she/her, they/them] - 2.3yr
a friend calls everyone dude, but they’re also super normal about it and check in with people to make sure they’re comfortable with the term and/or whether they have another they’d prefer
2
Łumało [he/him] - 2.3yr
Funnily enough, I refer to my family as "stinky". Maybe I should call everyone stinky.
Cromalin in traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns
dude is not gender neutral
if you call everyone dude and a transfem person gets mad about it, don't get defensive. just say like "sorry, i won't do it again" and don't argue "actually it's gender neutral" or "i call everyone dude". even if you do, i guarantee she's heard that argument from someone who very much does not call people they see as women dude. i certainly have
same goes double for the word guy.
"Gonna head down to the bar and fuck some dudes."
- Straight men (apparently)
-- What's up duuu--
-- [disapproving glare]
-- --uuudayeva. Dudayeva.
-- ...Did you just compare me to Alla Dudayeva, wife of Dzhokhar Dudayev, the first president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria?
-- ...Maybe?
It's not that hard to be decent and respectful.
All it comes down to is owning up to it.
vs.
Everyone has their own personal boundaries for comfort, even beyond things like gender. People just like to emphasize forgetting this principle for transgender people to show them as "crazies" and deny them their personhood due to their own hatred.
yeah. if you say ''sorry, but i call everyone dude'' (which i've seen several times) that isn't an apology! just apologize for accidentally being rude and i guarantee everyone will be chill and you can move on
all californians will be sent to re-education for being irritating as fuck about this
Surfers:
Hawaiian surfers are absolute chads, the surfers in california just need some aloha spirit beat into their bones
I wouldn't know, I've never been to any US state.
Good to know if I'm ever near Hawaii though.
Hawaii would be so awesome if we could kick out the Mormons and millionaires
Only after the east coast is reeducated that being stressed and angry is not a quirky regional culture and midwesterners stop presenting alternating layers of ranch and sour cream as “local cuisine”
oh shit oh fuck i call any plural group of people "guys" when im working and addressing multiple customers
when it's a plural group of people i don't think it's as big a deal, but it would be good to find an alternative
Why not "comrade"?
local rednecks would murder me and local libs would probably think im calling them putin shills
kind of lose lose
After living in the South I stole "y'all" and I'm not giving it back. No more "dudes", "guys", or even "folks".
Y'all is good culture 😌
just start calling people comrades at work. people would probably find it funny
Got to play up a thick Russian accent when you say it too
Funny enough a plural group of people being addressed as “guys” or “dudes” is the original source of this discourse, because early feminists were annoyed by being implicitly excluded in the language of people at work and school
doing it to a group is implicitly excluding women, but doing it to a specific women is explicitly misgendering. personally i wish neither would happen, but when it's the former it's something that happens to cis women too, and while it sucks it's not the worst thing in the world, whereas the latter feels really bad (to me, i understand if others feel differently)
"Folks" everytime?
We love it folks, we love it
Fuck, now you made me hate it.
From what I recall, referring to a group of people as “you guys” is a regional thing. I remember in that NY times dialect test that it was one of the questions that nailed me. That said, if I’m referring to group solely of women, it does seem odd, so I usually use party people or peeps in this situation. Using folks or y’all would get weird looks here.
makes sense. i think i say it because i'm originally from the more northern part of the mid atlantic and picked it up younger
This is why I address everyone by saying "hey asshole(s)!"
The women I speak to about this all essentially boil down to "yeah I don't like it but it's so small I just ignore it" and I can feel hundreds of thousands of feminists turn in their graves each time I get that explanation.
Trans women are good for women for the simple fact that trans women absolutely do not accept all the tiny little things cis women have always just put up with due to a lifetime of it and not wanting their entire existence to always be conflict. Trans people don't have a fucking choice, life is conflict, so fuck it, every little thing shall be fought.
I genuinely hope dude falls off heavily in use or disappears entirely. I hate having to explain to people why I'm not very fond of being called "dude"
This is anti-surf bum violence
im one of these bros who calls everyone dude.. everyone except the couple transfem people who ask me not to.. it costs me literally nothing and avoids hurting people I care about. Some people have no convictions apart from refusing the be normal decent people.
As someone that does the same, it really is that easy.
I am an admitted "calls everyone dude"-er in person, but if someone asked me not to the only conceivable reaction for me is "understandable, have a good day and I will endeavor not to call you that in the future"
Also I was really confused by your last sentence and thought I had missed some discourse on someone referred to as "the word guy"
So I don't ever use it out of respect to people who are sensitive to it. But I did grow up with it in my dialect.
Sometimes it isn't even an address in my mind, it's an interjection.
Like when I say, "god, that's so annoying," I'm not addressing the person I'm talking to as my god. That's just an interjection. But if I say dude instead of god, in my conception, I'm still using it as an interjection in that instance. But, of course, it's ambiguous to the listener.
The problem is shitty transphobes use that ambiguity as cover to target people in a way that otherwise well meaning cis people won't pick up on. Then the trans person being targetted is treated as overly sensitive when they complain.
It's a lot like how people use "they" to target people sometimes, even when they know the proper pronouns. On its own, I don't really care if I catch an occasionally "they," and don't consider it misgendering. But then a transphobe comes along and only calls me "they", day after day to target me, then that's harassment. But go to your cis HR and the harrasser's plausible deniability will be taken seriously.
So anyways, I stopped using dude, and you can too. You can have it back when we eliminate transphobes from the face of the earth.
I switched to calling people nerds a long time ago
I call everyone weebs
I call everyone 皆さん
"women are my favorite guy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-OgkNgxm3k
i see and hear women call eachother "guys" and "dude" pretty regularly even when there are no men in the group so it's not like my highschool spanish where the style guide used to be -os even if there was only one man. I don't think it's legitimate to argue that it's always gendered without getting into microdialects, but neither does that invalidate someone being uncomfortable because sometimes it is still gendered and of course we need to respect them.
Language, especially English, is just too complicated for me. I’m at the “fuck it I’ll say whatever you want it makes no sense to me anyway” phase
The problem is that when dj crazy times is singing, the people want to make a fun. It's a little bit of a different context so that's why it's not a microagression send post
yeah i mean obviously the ESL comedy song isn't a serious position
taken to calling people "gamer" or "gamers"
addressing any given group of people as "chat"
I don't really have a point but I find it funny that the "dude is gender neutral" debate predates mass awareness of the trans context. It was the first time I had encountered any discourse around misgendering and it was about cis people. I'm drawing a blank on what exactly, but I'm 99% sure I remember it appearing in some pop culture fiction stuff during the 90's too.
Yeah it was a rad fem issue regarding men excluding women implicitly in their language (using guys, dude, etc to refer to large groups). It was less about misgendering and more about acknowledging that you were overlooking/ignoring women in the group.
meanwhile today you'll catch groups of women and no men using guys and dude to address eachother.
Interestingly here in the UK referring to a group as "ladies" regardless of men or women being in the group is actually pretty common.
Like "alroight ladiesss how's everyone doin then?" isn't an uncommon phrase you'd here someone say meeting up with a group in the pub.
it's done here in the states too, usually by a male speaker, when the context is extremely unserious and the audience is presumed to be majority or entirely men.
I wasn't familiar with the rad fem angle, neat.
I'd only personally experienced it in small groups, usually where there were more women than men. There it was definitely more akin to misgendering than the rad fem variant. There was a lot of anxiety about not being "feminine" enough, I think probably because we were teenagers, especially if some women were more likely to get called 'dude' than others in the group. Also a lot of friction about becoming "one of the guys" or getting friendzoned, because again we were horny teenagers.
Horrible time for people presenting in even slightly non-gender conforming ways. I remember when one girl cut her hair short then being relentlessly teased for being a lesbian despite not being one.
bonus: getting called bro by another trans woman and getting explained how that's a gender neutral term when you're a gamer
bro is the most gendered term! why are people like this?
They say bro so much that their speech is just like bro bro bro bro, we should call them brobrorians or something
Like so many conversations, people are confusing is with ought.
Is:
"Dude" is gender neutral if used as a discourse marker because discourse markers aren't about addressing a particular person, but used in managing the flow of a discussion. It shares commonality with words and phrases like "well," "oh," "I mean," "I guess," "yeah," and so on. Notice how words like "man" and "bruh" can also be used as discourse markers. I suspect what happened was dude/man/bruh was originally just a way to address a male listener and through grammaticalization, it acquired an additional use as discourse markers. But the older way of using dude/man/bruh in order to address a male listener still exists. Ultimately, it's the difference between saying "man, let's get something to eat" and "man, this room is so big." But even then, there's also ambiguous cases like, "man, I'm hungry" which can go both ways as either a discourse marker "man, I'm hungry, I shouldn't've skipped breakfast" or directly addressing a male listener "man, I'm hungry, let's go out to eat."
Ought:
"Dude" ought to not be used as a discourse marker because there are ambiguous cases which causes confusion whether it's being used as a discourse marker or as a form of address. The consequence of this confusion is that non-male people risk being misgendered. It also can be weaponized by transphobes as well. I would say the easiest words to replace them with would be either "homie," which strictly speaking came from "homeboy" although "homegirl" has long since been adopted as well, or "cuz" from "cousin." The main obstacle is that both words are from AAVE and should these words be adopted for general use, it's going to be yet another case of non-Black people stealing words from Black people.
However, it's not just the case of not using "dude" as a discourse marker. It has to be replaced with another word. And in a sense, "dude" itself was the replacement word for "man." "Man, this sofa is fucking heavy." -> "Dude, this sofa is fucking heavy." But what does man/dude/bruh convey in those sentences? I suspect it's to be emphatic, the English equivalent of Japanese よ. Consider "this sofa is X," where X can be any appropriate adjective (heavy, cheap, brown, and so on)
To hesitantly or cautiously express that the sofa is X:
I guess the sofa is X.
I mean, the sofa is X.
Uh, the sofa is X.
To emphatically express that the sofa is X:
Man, the sofa is X.
Dude, the sofa is X.
Bruh, the sofa is X.
To make the sentence sound more natural, you add an appropriate adverb before X to get:
To hesitantly or cautiously express that the sofa is X:
I guess the sofa is kinda X.
I mean, the sofa is kinda X.
Uh, the sofa is kinda X.
To emphatically express that the sofa is X:
Man, the sofa is fucking X.
Dude, the sofa is fucking X.
Bruh, the sofa is fucking X.
Perhaps it's because man/dude/bruh originate as words for addressing men that it acquired its alternative use as a discourse maker used when you want to sound more assertive.
the linguistic angle here is genuinely fascinating, and relevant to a lot of this discussion. i think that even when used as discourse markers there's an amount of gender that remains attached, but i see what you're saying
i have to say though, that isn't the biggest issue the post was about. it was about being actually called a dude or a guy by people. a lot of the discussion here was about discourse markers but the og post is about people saying like. "hey dude, i'm not misgendering you" in reference to calling a trans woman "this guy" (real example!). very different problem, though i do appreciate your comment for putting a lot of ideas into words
Yes, absolutely. It's a case of linguistically defaulting to a masculine form. Not gramatically (grammatical gender is largely vestigial in contemporary English outside of personal pronouns), but semantically. This has been mentioned downthread, the original critique of these terms did not come from trans people, but ironically from radfems who opposed this default masculinity under a linguistic determinism angle, much moreso outside of the Anglosphere. For example, this is a major culture war issue in Germany, where reactionaries pretend that grammatically masculine terms, which are still commonly the default in German, are "gender neutral", whereas feminist and trans activists work on establishing actually gender neutral grammar as a new default.
Alternative take that i dont necessarily beleive in but has been bouncing around in my head a while: In the dialect of the English language my sub-culture typically ascribes to, dude is gender neutral when used as an address, please don't assume I am using language incorrectly because it doesn't follow the rules of your dialect. Would you go to Australia and pear-clutch because someone called you a c*** (in the familiar/genial use of the word)
edit: https://hexbear.net/comment/4648973
this comment is redditor behavior
Yes yes sorry I forgot no one is allowed to be contrarian about anything ever
i mean you can be a contrarian but when i'm here complaining about transphobia and you come in to play devils advocate, that's redditor behavior. and if you're intentionally being contrarian people are going to be annoyed with you, so you should probably have thicker skin and not immediately start whining when someone gets mad at you
I appologise (un-ironically)
I admit I am still a little debatebro brained, and I did not realize this was the trans specific comm when I first posted, If this is not a space for disagreement, I apologize for inserting my opinion into it.
I do not support intentional or malicious use of bro/guys to misgender, And if anyone in particular were to ask me to stop referring to them as such, I would (and do) try my best to do so.
My goal was to start a productive discussion about the conflict between the take you posted and linguistic descriptivism, which I tend to align myself with and believe is a popular opinion in these circles. I feel justified to discuss this issue as I identify with groups that use bro and dude as a gender neutral form of address, and hence I feel justified to defend myself. once again, if this is not the space for that I apologize, and will remove myself from the discussion, however If anyone would like to have a productive discussion on the topic I am open to changing or refining my opinion.
I also used a poor tone for my goal, and to communicate my dissatisfaction in the response i received, reedit snark is a hard thing to get out of your system.
edit: forgot how formatting worked, broke up brick of text into pieces
i don't think you don't need to leave or anything, and i appreciate the genuine apology. i do think it's important to note that a lot of times issues with microaggressions are difficult to parse when you're on the other end, and as mentioned many people see themselves as using bro/dude as gender neutral but very much do not. linguistic descriptivism isn't a bad way of looking at it but i think it's important to try and put yourself in the shoes of the group actually being discussed here and imagine what it looks like from their perspective. very difficult to know what camp someone falls into when talking about it online
You know that's entirely valid. I tend to over-empathize with groups I superficially fall into (such as people who use dude/bro as gender neutral) and assume that their intentions are as innocent as mine, which they may well not be, which leave me dying on the same hill as bigots.
Disagreement may be fine (idk, I don't make the rules), but if you repeat the same arguments people have heard a million times from transphobes trying to excuse transphobic behavior in a trans meme community that's an place for trans people to get away from such, doesn't be surprised if you are treated as a nuisance and potentially banned. If someone doesn't want to be called a removed, buddy, dude, etc then don't. Does not matter how you use the words with other people. Its not like people are suggesting we ban people from life for saying dude once.
Really? I thought approaching the dude/bro/buddy issue from a linguistic perscriptivism vs descriptivism perspective was at least a somewhat novel approach, and worth bringing up for discussion if anyone felt comfortable doing so with me.
When I started posting, I thought this was in a general comm, If i was aware I was inserting my opinion in a comm I am guest in as a non-trans person, I would have brought it up more delicately or considered saving it for a general comm. I appologise again if starting this kind of discussion is not welcome here, and if anyone wants me to shut up about it, I will.
I wholesale agree with you on this, as I said in the comment you replied to, I do not support intentional or malicious use of bro/guys to misgender, And if anyone in particular were to ask me to stop referring to them as such, I would (and do) try my best to do so. I am not and would never argue in favor of ignoring people's direct wishes on what they want to referred to as.
After my discussions with users in other threads from this comment, I think my personal conclusion is that while from some perspectives the "dude is gender neutral" approach may have legs, the people who use it are usually doing so as an excuse to directly dismiss people's wishes about what they want to be referred to, at best to cling to "being right" and at worst to invalidate people's gender identity or validity as a person, which is cringe.
No worries. Just wanted to provide some context. Given you didn't realize where you were posting, its fine. But yeah, you're basically saying the same things as lot of people have dealt with. Memes like this one are common because of how common people get it. The exact details or examples given might vary. This is a problem a lot of communities have to deal with. r/Fuck_cars is another community that had a constant influx of people spamming the same things and surprised when people are rude to them. Even if their arguments aren't mainstream opinions, those types of communities tend to attract those types of people.
Personally, I don't care about dude, but I think gendered language in general is kinda ick and would prefer if all language was gender neutral (but don't push that only others - don't want people thinking I'm one of those people who complain about trans people upholding traditional gender cause that's another all too common argument).
You're conflating is and ought. Descriptivism is only concerned with what a particular language is while everyone here is talking about what a language ought to be. Prescriptivism isn't in opposition to descriptivism in the same exact way is isn't in opposition to ought. When people shit on the Academie Francaise for prescribing some ridiculous word for "seat belt" that no one actually uses, people are actually shitting on a colonial institution that's out of touch with European French speakers never mind Francophones not from Europe. But there are plenty of cases where prescriptivism is useful. The easiest case is on the topic of slurs. If the marginalized community believes a given word is a slur, it doesn't matter if the majority of society doesn't recognize the word as a slur. The word ought to be considered a slur and ought to not be used regardless of descriptivist arguments to the contrary.
It becomes a lot more obvious when we're talking about "a dude" or "a guy" because those are absolutely gendered terms. Pluralizing a gendered term probably doesn't make it gender neutral.
Just say folks or yinz or something.
Romance languages in shambles rn
There is only one dude, and he is The Dude. All other use of the term is unlawful.
What aboot Canadian "buddy" and "pal"? I tend not to take offense aboot it because I figure they don't know any better.
I live in the US south these are fighting words. Comes off as condescending
Don't forget chief and champ, those are fighting words in the north too.
lol the speaker started talking about this during a lecture about unconscious bias training and I immediately checked out, especially because the rest of the lecture had literally nothing to do with implicit bias, even though she kept claiming it did. it was kind of infuriating.
also 100 replies in this thread is extremely sus.
idk what happened tbh, this was just something that frustrates me and i wanted to complain and then like 20 people made jokes and it ended up on the main page when sorting by hot
Gals is gender neutral
Just say dog instead. Its way better
darrg
Both of these drive me crazy. Its like, why. Also, I just don't know if I'm getting misgendered or not. And it bothers me
Ok, tovarshi/tongzhi-men, instead of guys/dudes...
I used to default to calling everyone dude unless they say otherwise. I call my sisters dude. Recently I have learned this is bad.
Luckily I am not a giant baby so it is nbd. I have resolved to not be like a boomer and let my language evolve without complaining
Side note I can understand why people may not want to be called dude. I hate being called "sis" or "girl" by gay dudes, it is both weirdly affirming and incredibly dysphoric all in the same package.
The only time I will accept the "dude is gender neutral" argument is if you are from Santa Cruz and we are in Santa Cruz.
morelike, dude (derogatory), I feel the same way about mate, I've accidentally blurted out it implies reproduction more than once.
dude likely comes from Yankee Doodle, and later meant something like city slicker, think fancy man, or f#g (politely) 🙄, dont call me dude, bro
If you've seen Easy Rider (1969), you know what happens to Yankee Dudes (they get murdered)
Anyway, I heard women and dudes used the other day and I can't stop laughing about it
I draw the line at "mate". I get everything else can be and is gendered and thats fine but "mate" is going to be the hill I die on.
As Egon@hexbear.net pointed out, it's more referred to companionship with a friend than reproduction and as others have pointed to and I agree with, if you dont want to be called x then I won't.
I know we're trying to having a serious discussion, but I got distracted by the vriska pfp
you got a problem with vriska?
Nah, quite the opposite actually. Vriska is cool 😎
hell yeah 8888)
Yeah, that's the thing. I have a friend who's enby and transitioned over the time I knew them. Ran into them earlier this year, and casually dropped a "dude" out of habit/forgetting, and then was like, "is that OK with you?" They're fine with it, but if they ever expressed otherwise I'd do my best not to call them that.
It's not rocket science. Just because I can call a woman "dude" doesn't magically change the meaning of the word.
My dear ex-friend used to call me dude all the time, literally all the time and I loved it so much. And then another former friend, who I blocked because of shit related to this, just had to say some shit to me about this, when I was in the middle of having a meltdown over a fight I was having with them (my ex-friend), and it should’ve been fairly obvious that I didn’t care that they called me dude.
(What made me block him in the end was that, he had met them, and because he’s known me for like 6 fucking years, I asked him to maybe try to talk to them. He didn’t want to because of something petty. He never took my feelings for them seriously. So fuck him.)
to be clear this is not saying no one can ever call a trans woman dude under any circumstances, it's just that if someone doesn't like being called something then you shouldn't call them that. and while some people use dude or guy gender neutrally, in my experience they're both gendered terms more often than not
Yeah, I get that. I just immediately commented what the title made me think of instead of actually reading the post because I’m an American.
you know, fair enough. i do that too sometimes
I dont really call people dude, but I do say dood at the end of sentences like the Prinnies from Disgaea. It can get confusing so if someone said it stressed them out I would stop.
I'm a non native speaker and only officially learned basic grammar pronouns (I to they). All the street pronouns (dude, y'all, pardner) I've learned were from the internet.
What are the best gender neutral street pronouns in current use?
y'all, all, folks, would all be commonly acceptable. honestly i try to just avoid the matter entirely when possible
These are all plural, though.
I'm thinking the case for dude is in expletives and third person references. Like "dude, totally tubular" and "the dude in front of me ordered a coke".
ohhhh ok, yeah. gender neutral language is hard. usually for the latter i just say 'person' and for the former i just cuss. i do sometimes notice "man" slipping into my speech, like "man that sucked" and i try to avoid it but i'm only so successful. expletives are often less targeted at the conversation partner so it feels less problematic to me but i still think it's generally polite to avoid unless you know someone is chill with it
Yeah, I have trouble with it given my limited vocabulary. I'm trying to develop some good habits.
"yo", " hey", "the person", " mate", "buddy", " pal"
going to be honest, though - directing any of these or even "dude"/"my guy" at the person you're talking to is fairly accusatory. you were pointed to the plural forms because they soften the blow.
Really? I thought "how are you doing, buddy?" Was more endearing than without the buddy part. Also didn't know mate, buddy and pal were neutral, thanks!
I was thinking mainly about leading a sentence with them:
"mate, what's going on?"
expresses more concern than
"what's going on, mate?"
I can see what you mean. Thanks again!
I think it can be (not always), but if someone is bothered by it I'm not going to bother them about it.
One that annoyed me was saying "man" at the start of sentences. Like "man, this sucks", which seems to me like "Allah, this sucks". I'm not referring to people in the vicinity. But it took me a while to figure out what the annoyance was. Also only one person seemed to think I was referring to them and I stopped around them.
Anyone care to share thoughts on bruh and bruh moment?
cos the root is bro, right? Bruh seems like it could be hurtful, but a bruh moment is almost its own thing
About as offensive as bro. Yes, i'm aware that it's often not even used to adress somebody directly, idgaf, just don't.
fucking with the gender of dude by just randomly throwing in an x somewhere in the word so its like
dxdethought about
dvdebut it looks too fascistNever called people dude because I found it too cringey and try hard. I find it especially weird when I see parents calling their kids that like they’re school buddies and not their parents.
a friend calls everyone dude, but they’re also super normal about it and check in with people to make sure they’re comfortable with the term and/or whether they have another they’d prefer
Funnily enough, I refer to my family as "stinky". Maybe I should call everyone stinky.