It says that 'boogyman' is potentially offensive because it refers to gender. So presumably if I am not caught up on a story, and I ask who the 'bad guy' is in the story, that is offensive because 'guy' implies maleness?

That whole line of reasoning could not be more absurd. Nobody has ever said 'bad guy' or 'boogyman' with the intention of somehow excluding fictional women from engaging in immoral fictional acts, or diminishing anyone.

If sensitive people go along, however, pretty soon anyone with any sense will avoid saying 'bad guy' because someone said it is bad to say that, and nobody wants other people to think we're not considerate.

The problem is not that it is offensive. It's very unlikely anyone would find it to be so. The problem is that it normalises maleness.

> Nobody has ever said 'bad guy' or 'boogyman' with the intention of somehow excluding fictional women from engaging in immoral fictional acts, or diminishing anyone.

It doesn't matter what your intent is. Using 'he' and 'man' everywhere normalises men and excludes people of a different gender.

> pretty soon anyone with any sense will avoid saying 'bad guy'

Well, yes. What's wrong with that? If there's a superior alternative, what's wrong if people start using it exclusively?

It's not superior. Out of almost half a billion English speakers, probably a very tiny percentage 'highly educated' people would ever even think that this is a topic someone might have an opinion about.

Everyone else, from small children on up, would just explain to you that a 'bad guy' can be a boy or a girl. It's not normalizing maleness, you are the one bringing an incorrect definition of -man or -guy, and that incorrect definition, which you insist on using despite being wrong both compared to the dictionary definition and long standing usage among native speakers, is what implies maleness.

This reminds me of the people who try to claim (hopefully tongue in cheek?) that history somehow encodes maleness because it has the word 'his' in it.

EDIT: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/ba... http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bad+guy http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bad%20guy

You could go all day, no dictionary assigns any sex (in fact, most even make it clear that a 'bad guy' can be non-human).

Why is a non-exclusionary alternative not superior? If it conveys the same meaning without being exclusionary, why is it not better? It's only not superior if you think being exclusionary isn't a quality, or utterly disregard its importance.

> Out of almost half a billion English speakers, probably a very tiny percentage 'highly educated' people would ever even think that this is a topic someone might have an opinion about.

Argumentum ad populum. Even so, you seem to be projecting: how do you know people actually agree with you?

> Everyone else, from small children on up, would just explain to you that a 'bad guy' can be a boy or a girl.

Would they? Have you gone out and asked them?

'tis true, 'guy' is sometimes rather generic, so they might say so. It's not the best example. But until you actually go out and ask, we don't really know. Err on the side of caution.

(I should note that while 'guy' may be generic in some contexts, this is only because maleness is considered generic in our culture, so it would still be problematic in that case.)

> This reminds me of the people who try to claim (hopefully tongue in cheek?) that history somehow encodes maleness because it has the word 'his' in it.

It's either tongue-in-cheek or a misunderstanding of etymology. Using his-story can be a political statement about how history as we chronicle it has largely focussed on men's achievements to the exclusion of others', though.

I have been persuaded that you might.

You are claiming that we should 'err on the side of caution'. Ignoring the false dilemma, first we must decide what that even means. Since you are proposing that we should encourage millions of people to change the way they refer to villians in fiction, I think it would certainly fall to you to provide evidence that such a sweeping change is worthwhile, and more importantly, worth costs, including opportunity cost, since we could have spent that time and effort on lots of other things.

Also consider the blow-back which may or may not exist. By exposing such a seemingly trivial preference as 'bad guy' vs 'bad person' or the non human-assuming 'bad entity' (although entity may not be inclusive to hive-minds like the Borg, or more emergent Gaia like forces, so the side of caution may just be the British 'baddie', but -ie is a diminutive, and who knows who might come out of the word-work to take offense at that, short people for a start). By having such a trivial belief, you may well inadvertently have people then conclude that all your beliefs are that trivial, academic, and generally bizarre, and then have them discount your other ideas. So certainly we need to determine if it is more cautious to 'keep our powder dry' before we leap in and insist that there is some harm being done, especially since we've really not established the harm to begin with.

Anyway, it's been fun arguing with you. I hope you enjoy the rest of grad school :)

A lot of people have much more time and patience than I do and could argue the case for gender-neutral language better. There are studies you could read if you're curious.

I will say one more thing, though: few things are ever as trivial as they appear. Death by a thousand cuts.

(I hope you're enjoying your life, even if you did end that with an insult.)

Be cautious in what you dismiss.

Then why would 'she' (the PC/feminist recommended alternative) be any more legitimate ?

Some people use 'she', which has the advantage that it tries to normalise women instead (not kind to others, but it makes you think, at least), but it's still exclusionary, yes. I'm not sure if it's fair to say it's the 'PC/feminist recommended alternative'. Certainly some advocate it, I don't know if they're a majority (I don't think so?). I know that the tool under discussion, `alex`, uses gender-neutral language ('they') instead. I also use 'they'.

Which is simply factually incorrect. "Boogeyman" doesn't refer to gender (or sex) at all. Like the "-man" in "woman", the "-man" that "Boogeyman" was partially derived from meant "person" -- a meaning that "man" had in English long before it acquired the alternate definition of "male human" (and even longer before that became the dominant use of the standalone word "man".)