Who's the Guy?

My intention for this post was to take a brief respite from the serious (understatement of the year), news of the day. What after all could be less serious than the word "guy"? It's the very definition of casual non-commitment, a word describing someone not distinctive, but rather ordinary, mediocre and average. After all he's just a guy. 

Little did I know there are people who take the subject of the contemporary uses of the word deadly serious. I'll get to that in a bit. 

Like casual words or expressions in any language, its precise etymology is not one hundred percent certain, but the common explanation is that guy derives from a historical figure, Guy Fawkes. If you don't happen to be British, you still may have heard of him as he is ironically memorialized every year by the holiday bearing his name that takes place on November 5. Fawkes was a 17th Century English Roman Catholic mercenary who participated in a plan to assassinate King James I in order to restore a Catholic monarch to the British throne. 

In the plan, not only was the king to be done away with, but so was the entire Parliament and the lion's share of British nobility. The deed was to be carried out by the detonation of 36 barrels of dynamite positioned in a room directly beneath the chamber of the House of Lords on the Fifth of November 1605, coinciding with the State opening of Parliament. This "Gunpowder Plot" was thwarted when Fawkes was discovered among the barrels of dynamite, ready to light the match.

As you can imagine, Fawkes and seven co-conspirators met ignominious ends, they were all sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, the standard punishment for treason at the time. Their immortality was sealed however by the British government who decreed that the failure of the Gunpowder Plotters would be commemorated every year as a national day of Thanksgiving, which continues to this day.

The celebrations are more like American Fourth of July than our Thanksgiving, featuring rowdiness, fireworks and bonfires which consume life-size effigies of Guy Fawkes and any other unpopular figures of the day. The effigies became known as guys. Eventually the meaning of "guy" would expand to be used as a pejorative term referring to men of shall we say, less than stellar attributes. 

The word guy made the Atlantic voyage to the New World where, shed of its original context, came to be used a generic term for men. That is to say, in our egalitarian society, you could either be a good guy or a bad guy. 

But wait friends, there's more!!!

If you're a native English speaker learning your first foreign language, you've no doubt noticed several grammatical concepts in the new language that are well, foreign to you. You may even be tempted to believe that the language you're studying is a bit strange. It's only when you start learning a second and third foreign language when you realize that in fact, English is the peculiar language.

Take for example the second person, personal pronoun. 

Many languages use different pronouns depending upon whom you are speaking to. If you are addressing a friend, family member, or child, you most likely would be using the familiar pronoun. If not, you would address the person with the formal pronoun. The line between the two varies from culture to culture, adding extra confusion when learning a new language along with the different cultures where it is spoken.

Most languages distinguish between the second person singular and the second person plural . In other words, if you are addressing one person, you would use the singular pronoun. If you're addressing more than one person, you'd use the plural pronoun.

English does not have any of these distinctions; we have only one word that covers all the options, "you".

Compare that to Spanish. In Spain, they have four words for you:

• tú - translation: you, singular, familiar.
• usted - translation: you, singular, formal.
• vosotros - translation: you, plural, familiar.
• ustedes - translation: you, plural, formal.

In Latin American Spanish, they've dropped vosotros so there is just one second person plural pronoun, ustedes, making life there a bit simpler, in that sense anyway.

Regardless, in Spanish and most languages of the world, there is no ambiguity between addressing one person, or a group of people.

In English, we have to rely on context to distinguish between the singular and the plural you. We also have ways of speaking which distinguishes between formal and informal speech, usually by the use of certain words.

Enter the word "guy". In American English, "guy," by making it plural and preceded with a "you" makes it function as a pronoun, sometimes.

In other words, "you guys" has become the go-to plural familiar second person pronoun, or if you prefer, the vosotros of American English.

Here's an example, if I were telling friends that I plan to accompany them to the store I might say:

Voy de compras con vosotros (in Spanish Spanish) = I'm going shopping with you guys. (in American English).

"You guys" obviously is plural, and it's also informal, you probably wouldn't address strangers who are older than you as "you guys".

But wait a minute folks, you ain't heard nothin' yet!!!

In the last God knows how many years, at least in this context, "you guys" has evolved to become gender-neutral. It can refer to males, females, or any combination of both, just like vosotros. 

However the gender-neutral "guys" is used in another manner which differs from vosotros, that is, in greetings.

In English if you walked into a room filled with friends you might say informally: "Hey guys." whereas in Spanish you wouldn't say "Hola vosotros", at least I've never encountered it.

Instead you might say something like: "Hola chicos" or in Italian, "Ciao ragazzi", which both literally translate to "hi boys." If it were a room filled with women you might say: "Hola chicas" or "Ciao ragazze", literally "hi girls". What if the room is filled with men and women? Spanish and Italian both default to the male-centric "Hola chicos" and "Ciao ragazzi" respectively, even if the crowd is comprised of one thousand women and only one man. That might be changing at least in some circles. One fix is being more inclusive by saying "Hola chicos y chicas" for example, or "Ciao ragazzi e ragazze" which can be a bit cumbersome, especially in an informal context. 

By contrast, "guys" has no generally accepted contemporary female counterpart. Probably the closest is gals (once-upon-a-time filling the bill), which sounds to my ears hopelessly antiquated, although some folks are trying to bring it back. 

It seems to me that our culture is striving to be ever more inclusive, gender-neutral and informal. In that vein, "you guys" would seem to be the perfect second person familiar pronoun.

Not everyone agrees. 

I recently came across a 2018 article in The Atlantic called "The Problem With 'Hey Guys'". Apparently, some people don't find the gender-neutral "guys" to be acceptable. As the piece points out in its introduction:

it’s a symbol of exclusion—a word with an originally male meaning that is frequently used to refer to people who don’t consider themselves "guys."

OK, point taken.

But the problem is that language seldom works as it should work, but rather how people want it to work. As I pointed out in another post, how else do you explain that the expression "I could care less" means the opposite of what the words indicate, and that we have to invent a new word for "literally" because literally, literally doesn't mean literally anymore. 

The Atlantic article goes on to suggest some more PC, gender-neutral alternatives to "you guys", such as "friends", "folks", "people", "team", and the ever popular "you all", in speech typically shortened to "y'all". 

The problem with these is they all fit into their own niche, carry some amount of baggage, and are not nearly as flexible as "you guys". For example:

• "Friends" has a disingenuous ring to it. It sounds like something that would come out of the mouth of a televangelist or a used car salesman. 
• "Folks" implies that what follows is bad news such as: "I hate to tell you this folks, but your pet ferret has COVID." 
• My father always used to address us with "hello people". As English was not his first language, I'm not quite sure what he intended to convey but "people" has a very authoritarian/dismissive ring to it as in: "What were you people thinking?"  
• "Team" sounds like someone is trying too hard. 
• "You all"/"y'all" both make perfect sense as both a greeting and as a plural pronoun. The problem is both are SO identified with the language of the American South and by extension, Black American English, that anyone who uses those terms and is not a member of either of those groups, sounds phony.

And on and on and on...

Which brings us back to "you guys". 

Thanks in part to popular culture where so much of our casual speech originates, (think of the opening to the 1970s children's TV show The Electric Company featuring the great Rita Moreno), "you guys" has become enshrined in the American English Hall of Fame. 

I think it's really going against the grain to not accept that in certain contexts, "you guys" has evolved into a truly gender-neutral term, just as it evolved centuries before from exclusively describing an object, to describing people. 

As a generally accepted gender-neutral term, "you guys" has the advantage over its equivalents in other languages as we saw above, where you have to reverse engineer them in order to be inclusive, making them less informal in the process. And as we also saw, "you guys" has less baggage than its alternatives in English.

"You guys" has become so ingrained into our American English lexicon that whether we like it or not, it's going to be around for a very long time. 

The other day at Thanksgiving I noticed my very proper (linguistically speaking) ninety something, former elementary school principal mother using "you guys" to address her equally persnickety eighty something female friends who found no offense in it.

Just try to pry that bone away from those formidable ladies, I dare you (guys).

Talking Point Number One: It's All About Colonialism

This is part one of a series of posts I hope to create that deals with the current talking points concerning the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. 

There are simple problems in this world with complex solutions, and there are complex problems with relatively simple solutions. I can't think of any real-life examples of the latter at the moment but I know they exist. But the most heart-wrenching soul searching, tragic issue dominating the news at this writing, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a sterling example of the former.

In a nutshell, simplified only to a small degree, here is the problem:

A nation, the Jewish people, had lived in exile from their ancestral homeland for nearly two millennia. Keeping their way of life, their traditions and for the most part their religion intact, the Jewish diaspora lived as outsiders wherever they found themselves, and were often treated as such. Despised, denigrated, segregated, deprived of the rights of citizenship, and often basic human rights, antisemitism has been a given in the Jewish experience since their time in exile. 

Zionism, the movement to establish a Jewish state and homeland, has existed for centuries. It wasn't exclusively a Jewish movement as Christian groups hoping to fulfill scripture, found inspiration in returning Jews to the Holy Land in order to achieve that end.

It was in fact American Christian Zionists who coined the contentious term: "A land without a people for a people without a land."

That land of course was Palestine and suffice it to say, the first part of that aphorism was dead wrong. For centuries, Arab Muslims formed the majority of the population of Palestine, the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. For the most part, they lived there in peace with Christian and Jewish minorities, all the while under the sphere of the influence of foreign colonial rule.

Meanwhile the nineteenth century saw a marked increase in antisemitism in Europe which inspired the modern Zionist movement. In the late 1800s, Theodor Herzl, a Jewish lawyer and journalist born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in what is today the city of Budapest, would become the founder and driving force of the movement that would ultimately result in the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. As a young man Herzl realized that assimilation of the Jews into European society was impossible. He believed there was no solution to antisemitism and that the only way for the Jewish people to live in peace and freedom was the establishment of a state of their own.

Herzl's ideas were brought to the public in his book Der Judenstaat, (The Jewish State), published in 1896. The following is the conclusion of Herzl's work:

...I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence... Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes. The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.

Palestine was not the only location considered for the new Jewish State. Historically, places as far afield as sites in the United States, far eastern Russia and even Japan were brought up as possibilities. In 1903, the British suggested a territory of Eastern Africa which was under their control, in present day Kenya as a possibility. Herzl took that idea under consideration. 

One of the reasons for the rejection of the idea was that the people already there would object.

Imagine that.

Some say that colonialism is responsible for the current crisis in the Middle East and that idea is not entirely without merit. As has been pointed out ad nauseam by fervent supporters of Israel, there has never been an independent Palestinian state with Palestinian Arabs in control of their own destiny. Rather, Palestine and its people have been pawns on a chessboard representing whatever foreign power controlled them. Some would say they continue to be.

As for the Jews, if the 19th Century was disastrous for them in Europe, the 20th Century was catastrophic. 

During World War I, in exchange for their support in the effort against the Ottoman Turks, the British and the French made contradictory deals, promising self-determination to the Arabs of the Middle East, and a homeland to the Jewish people in Palestine. After the war, the two victorious European powers had a change of heart, dividing the spoils of their victory among themselves and in the process created the nations of Iraq and Jordan as token rewards to the Arabs. However due to their strategic importance, Syria and Palestine, also considered by the Arabs to be part of the deal, would remain under European power. The Europeans did keep their promise to support a Jewish homeland in Palestine however, with little regard to the people who already lived there.

The following is the complete text of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a public pledge written by then British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour and sent to a prominent British Zionist, Lord Walter Rothchild:

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. 

(emphasis mine)

Some staunch defenders of Israel use the highlighted portion of the text to point out that the rights of the indigenous Palestinian population were indeed an integral part of the Zionism project. 

What they fail to mention was that Britain had no intention of involving the current residents of their plan to create a homeland for another group. In a private memorandum, Arthur Balfour said this:

In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants.

He would later add that the cause of a Jewish homeland was...

Of far profounder import than the desires of the Arab inhabitants.

Colonialism certainly created the framework that set in motion the conflict we have today where in the words of the prominent Israeli intellectual Arthur Koestler: “one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third.” 

Yet in the wake of the decline of colonialism in the 20th century, another "ism" had taken its place, nationalism. The right to self-determination is a noble concept that looks great on paper. But the real world is not so tidy and compartmentalized.  There are always groups of people who are left behind when one group is granted self-determination over their region after years of colonial rule. We have seen this happen time and again in Africa, India, the Balkans and of course Israel, to name just a few. 

The British were in control of Palestine from the capture of Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks in 1917, until 1948 when they decided to cut their losses and go home. This period is referred to as the British mandate of Palestine. While upholding the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which declared British support for a Jewish state in Palestine, the British controlled the number of Jews who could enter Israel, even during the height of the reign of terror of the Nazis that resulted in the Holocaust. It is said this was done in order to prevent the Arab countries from siding with the Axis powers. Nevertheless, between the end of the First and the end of the Second World Wars, the Jewish population of Palestine increased from around 90,000 to 630,000, while during that time, the Arab population remained fairly stable at around one million people.

It should come as no surprise that there would be consequences to such a dramatic demographic shift over such a short period of time. The consequense was violence committed by both the Arabs and the Jews. 

In 1948 the Arab population of Palestine was still in the majority. When the British left, control of the region was given over to the newly formed United Nations. The U.N. determined that the solution to the Arab/Jewish conflict was to partition the region in two areas with each group given hegemony over their own area. The map they drew up looked very similar to the Israel of today with the West Bank and Gaza as well as the Golan Heights given over to the Arabs, while the rest of the territory, some 60 percent of the land, was to be handed over to the Jews. Given the very simple fact that the minority of the land was offered to Arab Palestinians, the indigenous people of the region who still constituted a majority of the population, they rejected the offer.  

Can anyone blame them?

Or for that matter, can anyone blame the Jews for looking to find a homeland, especially after the horrors of the Holocaust?

As I said at the top, at its heart it's a simple problem, namely two groups of people in conflict over the control of a small piece of land.

The solution to the problem on the other hand, is painfully difficult.

Sure, colonialism played its part. But blaming colonialism or any other "ism" I'm afraid, isn't in the cards as part of the solution for the here and now.

We're stuck with what we have, Israeli and Palestinian people, many with quite different agendas, some 15 million people trying, and some not, to live together in a piece of land that is just slightly bigger than the state of New Jersey.

It's a simple fact of nature that we cannot turn back the hands of time to change the past, we can only move forward.

The next talking point when I get around to it is this: anti-Zionism = antisemitism.

Stay tuned.