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I am not a native English speaker and I have sometimes referred to people as male and female (as that is what I have been taught) but I have received some backlash in some cases, especially for the word "female", is there some negative thought in the word which I am unaware of?

I don't know if this is the best place to ask, if it's not appropriate I have no problem to delete it ^^

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[-] idiomaddict@feddit.de 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I’m torn here. It’s a good way for me to talk about my peers (early thirties) in the third person, but it doesn’t quite fit for second person for me. (Edit: ”guy” is also not great for second person, now that I think about it, so maybe it’s more equivalent than I realized. Though for plural third person, it still isn’t 1:1, imo. “Two guys in my class” has a different connotation from “two ladies in my class,” but I can’t put my finger on why.)

“Ladies” feels formal/salesy (if someone addresses a group of women I’m in as “ladies,” it feels like they’re either a server for our group dinner or trying to quickly build rapport) to me, whereas “lady” can often feel straight up rude ( “hey, lady!” sounds like Bart Simpson said it vs. “hey, ladies!” which could mean so many different things depending on the context, but seems less annoyed at least).

this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
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