"You're such a guy," says the woman to her man, imputing either that he is thrillingly red-blooded or too pigheaded to ask for directions.
In olden times -- a period from the 17th-century terrorist named Guy Fawkes through Damon Runyon's Guys and Dolls to about a dozen years ago -- the word guy denoted a man. In the singular, it still does: a guy thing connotes an activity understandable only to the male.
That's why the writers of copy selling sildenafil citrate at Pfizer pharmaceuticals chose that informal word to advertise their product to "guys with ED," repeating that reg'lar feller noun in explaining that Viagra is "for guys with erectile dysfunction." Asked why the word "men" was not used in the otherwise formal copy, a spokesman for the drug company replied: "The topic of ED often prompts nervousness, embarrassment and even fear .... We've found that men sometimes related better to less formal communication about this topic, and when we're trying to achieve an informal tone, the word guys is appropriate." (Observed the poet W.H. Auden in 1946: "Thou shalt not be on friendly terms/With guys in advertising firms.")
I noted here last year that much of the badness has been leached out of the phrase bad guys, which is often followed with a "but," as a State Department spokesman's recent explanation of failure to go after Osama bin Laden in the 1990s: "Yes, he was a bad guy, but he was one of many."
In a recent review of a film made from a gripping John Le Carre novel, the Wall Street Journal headlined: "A Tale of Global Bad Guys, Constant Gardener Putters, But It Doesn't Dig Deep." A bad guy is no longer simply the opposite of "good guy;" the ensuing but signals the vitiation of the villainous sting of depravity. No longer do we have scoundrel, malefactor, blackguard, monster or Hamlet's "Bloody, bawdy ... remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!"; we have merely the bad guy, but -- just another type of the familiar guy.
The word's warm informality also makes it usable as what might be called an adverbial noun, modified by an adjective. Those uncomfortable clearly identifying someone as black, or a Jew, or a Pole often say "he's a black guy" or a Jewish guy, or a Polish guy or a gay guy, with the noun taking the perceived sting out of the racial, religious, ethnic or sexual-orientation description.
The cultural critic Leslie Savan catches this nuance in her book Slam Dunks and No-Brainers: "To be called `a [blank] guy' can plunk a male from any occupation or background right into the heart of affable, knucklehead America."
In the past, the plural guys had a likable, Middle American male connotation; in Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys, the humorist notes that Doberman pinschers are men while Labrador retrievers are guys. But these days, the addition of the "s" has led to the neutering of guy. You guys is no longer limited to males; it can be a group of men and women, or even a group solely of women.
What caused this?
"I think we're desperate for a plural `you' in contemporary English," says Robin Lakoff, professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley. "The South has y'all and some New Yorkers have youse, but the rest of us have nothing. It was dumb of our ancestors to jettison thou." -- Politicians have the nonregional you folks.
How come a group of women can be called guys? For groups of women, Deborah Tannen, professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, always uses guys, never gals.
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