From: b.scott@csuohio.edu   
      
   On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:14:14 +1200, Zeborah   
    wrote in   
    in   
   rec.arts.sf.misc:   
      
   > Aqua  wrote:   
      
   >> Bill Swears wrote:   
      
   >>> Aqua isn't a bad guy, she's a   
   >>> good guy, and I have committed a fox paws.   
      
   >> I'm not a guy, actually.   
      
   >> Aqua   
   >> much eye rolling.   
      
   > Hrm, I rather like "guy" as gender neutral, and I've   
   > certainly seen/heard "guys" used to address a group of   
   > females-only on an NZ soap opera.  I also read "bad guy"   
   > and "good guy" each as single words; there's a subtle   
   > phonetic difference between "a bad-guy" and "a bad guy".   
      
   I think that 'guy' is probably somewhere between truly   
   gender-neutral and male-as-norm, pretty closely   
   approximating the former for some speakers.  But I   
   definitely agree that 'good guy' and 'bad guy' are largely   
   independent of 'guy'.  Not quite, because 'she's a good guy'   
   admits a slight ambiguity that 'she's one of the good guys'   
   doesn't, but very nearly.   
      
   Brian   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)