Girls and guys
Jeremy Pierce is asking whether gal is a derogatory term. Well, technically, he responding to a websearch that brought someone to his site. He says:
As usual, I posted something in his comments, but now I'm going to say pretty much the same thing here (but with better grammar and HTML encoding). And that is that while I've never liked gal, I'm perfectly okay with "girl" as an informal term for a woman, no matter what age. It's exactly the complementary term to "guy," as in: Girls' Night Out/Guys' Night Out, just the girls/just the guys, etc. If women prefer another term, I wish they would define it. None of the old ones seem appropriate anymore: chicks, dolls, and gals all feel out of date.
If a derogatory term requires that the speaker intends it to have a negative connotation, I don't think it's derogatory. And I do think that's what it means to be derogatory. But I've never been comfortable with the term. It's always seemed like a diminutive. I understand that it's intended to be a substitute for 'girl' to refer to people who are supposed to be old enough that 'girl' feels inappropriate but who aren't quite women yet.
As usual, I posted something in his comments, but now I'm going to say pretty much the same thing here (but with better grammar and HTML encoding). And that is that while I've never liked gal, I'm perfectly okay with "girl" as an informal term for a woman, no matter what age. It's exactly the complementary term to "guy," as in: Girls' Night Out/Guys' Night Out, just the girls/just the guys, etc. If women prefer another term, I wish they would define it. None of the old ones seem appropriate anymore: chicks, dolls, and gals all feel out of date.
