In this bonus episode, Kevin interviews Allan Metcalf about his new book, “The Life of Guy: Guy Fawkes, the Gunpowder Plot, and the Unlikely History of an Indispensable Word.”
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The History of English Podcast
The Spoken History of a Global Language
Interesting episode as ever, Kevin. I happen to live just a few miles from where Guy Fawkes grew up; indeed, there is an Inn named after him just down the road. Guy Fawkes is such a character that everyone knows of him in the UK – almost to the point of forgetting that other English-speaking nations don’t give him the same level of infamy!
And of course this area has the Yorkshire accent around it. Somewhat ironically, and I’m not sure if Allan Metcalf was aware of this, but Metcalf as a surname is very common around this very area too.
Oh and to add to the later part of the episode… yes, ‘you guys’ is used very much throughout the UK.. but no ‘y’all’! (Maybe occasionally ‘you lot’?)
As an American who lived outside of London in the 1970’s and now travels to the UK annually, I can share my observations of how the use of the word “guy” has changed over the years. In the 70’s, the word “guy” was rarely used to refer to a (male) person. The word of choice was “bloke”. “You guys” was never used, and once when I used it when referring to a group of females in the second person plural, they all immediately became offended–“we aren’t ‘guys’!” Now when I go to the UK, they used the term “guy” and “you guys” as frequently and in exactly the same way as they do in the US. The word “guy” is used far more than “bloke” which I rarely hear now.
Two things to add. Firstly you guys is still perceived as somewhat gendered so many women don’t like it. Secondly you guys didn’t address the question of use in writing. I don’t think you guys is used there and until it does I don’t think it can be considered the standard English solution
I agree. Guys is definitely default male and rough riding over the existence of non-male members of the group. It is most assuredly not considered gender neutral by sufficient of the non-male population to be usable freely in that context.
As a former Yankee living now in the American south, I go to great pains not to say “Y’all.” “You guys” is my go-to. I know many people think it’s too gendered, but it doesn’t bother me. I agree that it is not appropriate for formal writing, although neither is y’all.
My Father-in-Law always said that Guy Fawkes was the only man to enter Parliament with honest intentions!
Before the 1960s I only remember the word “guy” being used in British English to describe the stuffed figure we used to wheel around the streets in early November begging for money. “Penny for the Guy!”
in Britain we were only aware of the word “guy” meaning “man” from Hollywood films, particularly westerns, but it really began to impinge on the language when American pop and rock music began to be more common (cf Mary Wells “My Guy”).
In British English the more common word for a man was “bloke” but over the last 50 years that has been replaced by “guy”.
The use of the phrase “you guys” in British English is probably no more than 10-15 years old and, like in American English, is gender neutral. It is more common amongst younger people.
One interesting thing is that because it’s essentially a “borrowed” word to British English it hasn’t gone through the development stages so we never had “guy” as a pejorative term.
A very interesting interview.
Simon, good point – you hear ‘blokes’ a lot less than you used to in the UK. Plus, it’s always in the third person – you don’t ever say ‘you blokes’. Quite often around my parts (north) you’ll here ‘fellas’, probably more than ‘blokes’.
Yeah, wot ‘e said. And another thing mate: children used to make an effigy of Guy Fawkes, as stated, and call out “Penny for the Guy!” (a bit like Hallowe’en). The “guy” was usually made of old clothes stuffed with newspapers, and in the 1700s a guy apparently came to mean any oddly-dressed man. Not surprisingly it lost its pejorative sense faster in the colonies since Guy Fawkes Night isn’t a thing there. Another reason it may not have caught on in England is that there already are (were?) very many similar words such as: bloke, chap, fellow, geezer, lad, punter, sort, bod, etc.
Interestingly in this colony – New Zealand – Guy Fawkes certainly has been very well known through my lifetime and the date celebrated with all the requisite rhymes, guys and pennies, bonfires and fireworks.
But in the last couple of decades setting off of home fireworks has been curtailed by limiting sales of these, and civic displays are being moved to honour other occasions instead.
I was struck by the description of one intermediate step from the name Guy to guy the generic for man was as someone especially ‘fastidious’ about dress, a dandy, a dude.
The word ‘dude’ has attained a similar very informal status to that of ‘guy,’ although it remains exclusively male.
Larry,
I’ve noted that same trend regarding ‘dude’, and I must admit that living in the south like Melissa, above, I fought saying ‘y’all’ for years. But now, instead of saying something like, “Hey, you guys!”, I’ll say “Hey, dudes!” Or even, when talking to or about my kids, referring to them as “the dudes and dudette” (adding the French -ette feminine diminutive to differentiate my daughter).”
“Dude” is so interesting, especially dude-as-discourse marker! check out this article: https://web.stanford.edu/class/linguist150/readings/Kiesling2004.pdf
In short, “Indeed, the data presented here confirm that dude is an address term that is used mostly by young men to address other young men; however, its use has expanded so that it is now used as a general address term for a group (same or mixed gender), and by and to women. Dude is developing into a discourse marker that need not identify an addressee, but more generally encodes the speaker’s stance to his or her current addressee(s). The term is used mainly in situations in which a speaker takes a stance of solidarity or camaraderie, but crucially in a nonchalant, not-too-enthusiastic manner. Dude indexes a stance of effortlessness (or laziness, depending on the perspective of the hearer), largely because of its origins in the “surfer” and “druggie” subcultures in which such stances are valued. The reason young men use this term is precisely that dude indexes this stance of cool solidarity.”
As a Californian, born and raised, I can confirm that, while singular “dude” may have, in the past, been used to refer to a masculine person, today anyone and anything can be a “dude”. Except my mom. She won’t put up with being called “dude”. There is the singular “dudette”, but I honestly haven’t heard anyone use that word in a very long time. Generally, “dudes” is a plural that can be used for any and all genders, at lease here in California.
I agree with all of the comments from my fellow Brits. Guy was always seen as an Americanism until about two decades ago. The pressure from TV and films however finally levered the word into the language. We learn all sorts of new words from our cousins over the pond.
What I can’t understand is that of all of the conspirators in the gunpowder plot Guy Fawkes is the only one that most people remember.
Good point. In England we have a Guy Fawkes Day (November 5th) but not a Robert Catesby Day, despite the fact that Catesby was the chief conspirator and Fawkes (whose real name was actually Guido not Guy) was a paid mercenary.
I tend to use the folks when addressing a mixed gender group. It may be old fashioned but it feels more comfortable to me to address women as folk rather than guys.
I enjoyed the Life of Guy bonus episode. I’ve recently retired from an international energy company. Before retirement, I worked with people in Malaysia, Australia, India, UK, France, Germany, Canada, Mexico, The Netherlands, Brazil and US. English was the common language of business. One expression that was universally understood at all locations was: “You Guys”.
Interesting episode on a topic I’ve been curious about. In recent years, though, I’ve been surprised to find “y’all” in much higher use than I would have expected among young people from all over the country, at least based on what I see on Twitter and hear in podcasts (https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/why-is-everyone-suddenly-saying-yall). So, I don’t know if ultimately “y’all” will definitely be defeated by “you guys” as contended in the episode. I think this is mostly deliberate from progressives to be more gender neutral/inclusive compared to “you guys” (as pointed out, no one would say “look at those guys” and wonder if it was men or women). I actually wonder if it will break down on political persuasion, with more liberal people, ironically, being more likely to use “y’all” in the future (at least outside the South and below a certain age).
I think this more widespread use is pulling it from AAVE rather than Southern English, as it is the more “cool” of the two varieties and where slang often originates (see “woke”); as some of the comments above suggest, many people still stigmatize southern English, even if they choose to live in the South, and don’t want to identify with it. I remember a roommate of mine from college (not even that long ago, in 2011), from Western NC; her parents had strong accents, and she had a few non-standard features she didn’t even realize (such as use of the past tense as the past participle, e.g. “I have ate”), but she proudly and adamantly declared “I don’t say y’all” (not an uncommon practice at UNC at the time, but nowadays I bet is much more common for the reason mentioned above); I guess it is among the most salient markers of Southern English..
I generally agree that “y’all” is more widespread than Professor Metcalf suggests in his book. To be fair, the book focuses on the history of the word “guy,” not the term “y’all.” I think “you all” is extremely common throughout English, even though it isn’t necessarily contracted outside of the South. The linguist Scott Shay has argued that English speakers will eventually settle on “you all” as the standard second person plural pronoun construction. He also argues that “you all” will eventually be contracted to “yul” in standard English. So if that theory proves to be true, English will end up with “yul” instead of “y’all,” but given the similarities, it seems likely that “y’all” would also be consumed by such a development. Of course, only time will tell.
I think you mean Southern American English not Southern English !
The one very clear lesson from this episode is that the evolution of language is wonderfully bizarre and unpredictable. That said, google trends does not agree that “ya’ll” is in decline compared to “you guys”. Indeed, the opposite; here’s the google trends comparison.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%22you%20guys%22,ya%27ll
Something that we can’t foresee as a result of a seemingly unfathomable chance event will inevitably explain why yet some other set of phrases replaces both of these within 200 years. The only part I’d bet on is that in 200 years we still won’t have a universally accepted plural second person pronoun. If English was going to “fix” that “problem” we would have done it by now!
I personally hope that this pronoun quirk of English will be a perpetual source of amusement and creativity. I think of it like this: What can more rapidly identify a group and activate solidarity than the pronoun they collectively use, ie their choice of the 2nd person plural? — “Gentleman?!”, “Hey guys!” “Duuudes, wassup?!” “Ya’ll ready?”, etc. IMHO, this “bug” in the language is actually one of its more interesting and amusing features.
Great episode. As always, thank you Kevin.
— Zack Simpson; Austin, Texas
It would be nice to see an addition to the show notes pointing out that y’all is widespread in African American English throughout the United States.
Also, because of the masculine use of the singular ‘guy’, many in the LGBTQ+ community do not consider ‘you guys’ to be gender inclusive. There hasn’t been a widespread consensus on what to replace it with, but I expect it will become less common as more people realize that their intent to use it inclusively doesn’t mean that that’s the impact.
The name ´Guy’ is a French name that goes back to the 10th Century and is still common in France. Guy Fawkes, as a Catholic in England, may have been named after some of the saints named Guy.
As a child we used to celebrate Guy Fawkes fireworks every year.