On Thu, 06 Nov 2003 13:36:16 -0500, Nancy Young
> wrote:

>
>I tried to find it online, but no luck. There was a call for people
>to write in to the restaurant critic of my local paper asking for
>opinions on what offends them ... well, I'll just key in the first
>paragraph:
>
>"Listen, you guys, enough already. And that includes me. I never
>thought, not once, when I asked readers and restaurant employees a
>couple of months back to talk about matters of service that so many
>folks would be offended by a casual expression used by servers in
>addressing diners at restaurants: "What can I get you guys?"

You hit a nerve. I'm a part-time grammar cop, and "guy/guys" drives me
up the wall. I've been protesting to local media for some time that
terms such as "victim", "suspect", "man," "young man," etc. are more
appropriate for professional journalism. Not to mention "you guys"
becoming gender-neutral. Oddly, one news director I spoke to thought
"guy" was perfectly OK, but was horrified to find one of his reporters
had refererred to a young college woman as a "girl." In fact, the
"girl" had been attacked by a "guy" who ran into the woods. Babe,
dude, chick, brother, are only a heartbeat away.