See those bridges? Somehow they’ve joined and slang is sneaking across them from the US to the UK.
There used to be a divide between people who say “you guys” and people who don’t, and that divide was the Atlantic Ocean.
When I was studying for an M.A. in Liverpool in the late 1970s, I naturally said “you guys” all the time, frequently in connection with some food-related activity. “Hey, you guys!” I would shout to my English women friends. “Wanna go get some pizza?”
My English women friends would respond as follows: (1) “guys” are things you set fire to on Guy Fawke’s night; (2) women should not be referred to as “guys”; (3) it’s not lunch time.
This flummoxed me. If you’re hanging out with a bunch of men (I kept trying to do this, with indifferent success), you can address them as “Hi there, fellows” or “Hey, lads!” But when you’re chillin’ with your Jills, your terms of address are limited. “Girls”? Insufficiently feminist. “Hey, lasses! Wanna go get some pizza?” No.
Pizza achieved; slang unchanged until recently
So I went on saying “you guys” and eventually my friends stopped correcting me. Sometimes they even went for pizza. But they didn’t say “you guys.”
Today, though, I got an email message from one of these friends, and there in the first paragraph, in reference to another woman and me, was the phrase: “you guys.”
Crikey! My friend Dr. Posh Well-Spoken (not her real name) is now saying “you guys” even though she’s very proper and gently-reared and has more degrees than you can shake a stick at, if shaking sticks is your idea of a good time, and who am I to judge your hobbies?
I have also heard English people say “gonna” and “come ta.” Sometimes they say all three, as in, “Those guys on the England team are gonna come ta no good.” At this rate it’s only a matter of time before the Queen begins her Christmas speech, “Yo, dudes, listen up.”
It’s been happening for years. I seem to remember, in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, one character (John Hannah?) asking another (Hugh Grant?), “How’s it going?”
Hey, I’m glad you asked!
English people never used to ask that question. Particularly not of Americans, for fear of getting an answer. “Well, my piles are playin’ up something awful, which is why I’m sittin’ on this cushion, and say, this weather’s just the pits, does it ever stop rainin’ over here? These sweatpants are never gonna dry out at this rate, plus … ”
Yes, it’s an enduring mystery that although we Americans haven’t got time to differentiate among our vowels — in fact we find it pretty darned im-pahss-uh-bull — we do have time to talk, well, quite a lot, actually.
It will be more entertaining to listen to us when British slang wakes up and realizes that it, too, can sneak across the bridges. I look forward to the day when Jon Stewart can call Glenn Beck a wanker and have done with it. (If he’s done this already, PLEASE send me the link.)
I’m doing my bit, crikey-ing and bloody-ing all over the place, calling people “daft as brushes,” popping to the loo, etc. Mostly I just get funny looks, but I’m a persistent little git once I get an idea into my head.
Which reminds me:
Hey, you guys, wanna go get some pizza?
