[JonGarfield]

Can't speak for anyone else, but lady ≠ guy:

boy/girl guy/gal gentleman/lady man/woman male/female

When people mix pairs, it is most often to single out the woman. One of the most egregious is guy/girl. The use of "lady" is old-fashioned, and raises a red flag about what other "old-fashioned" ideas the speaker might hold.

[satokema]

No, you just purport "lady" to be old-fashioned because it furthers a political point.

Keep your paws off my shared language. I want to be able to refer to people without googling for the polite terminology du jour, since even "woman" is offensive in some circles.

[JonGarfield]

No, I'm saying it has a connotation. In my experience, it is exclusively used by men who DO, demonstrably, have a certain view towards women. I do not like being referred to that way. It has ALWAYS come with other baggage that works its way into the workplace, however politely it is used. The red flag is based on lived experience, not an abstraction.

[sethammons]

/me waves. Nice to meet you. I'm assuming I don't have this certain view towards woman. Hopefully, you can now remove your "exclusively" tag (absolutes seldom hold). I grew up with a strong woman figure in my mom and stories of my grandma. The top students in most my classes through high school were girls. I grew up _knowing_ that girls are smarter than guys. Full stop. I had to get to college and take education classes to learn about systemic issues affecting woman negatively in education. So my unconscious bias is that woman are more intelligent than their male counterparts, and I have to work to keep calibrated towards "people are just people, and guys can be just as smart as girls." And I use the word "lady" a lot. It never even occurred to me that it could hold negative connotations. Other words I use: fellas, folks, y'all, kiddo, boss, guys. Lastly, your "the red flag is based on lived experience, not an abstraction" -- beware of confirmation bias. When you look for something, sometimes you find it more often.

Edit: to further clarify, when I use "lady" it quite literally means the same as "guy" with the caveat that the gender is taken into account. "You ladies going out for lunch?" is the same as "You guys going out for lunch?" with the difference being there would be no males in the first group. "I interviewed a lady" is the same in my head as "I interviewed a guy."

[OJFord]

I would never describe someone respectable as 'the woman over there'.

Most words have 'a connotation', it's not a reason not to use them. Offense at 'lady' and preference for 'woman' is baffling.

Like most similar baffling things on HN, I'll assume this is an American (or even region within) thing.

[bwb]

Ah that makes me sad, I grew up in the south with hippie parents and they all used lady normally. I wonder if that is a Southern thing they adopted or what?

[Gibbon1]

I feel like you wanted to attack his point found nothing and then went after his choice of feminine pronoun.

[ThrowawayR2]

I showed your comment to my colleagues (a mixed group of men and women) and they were surprised to hear anyone had such a negative view of the word "lady".

I suspect you're more or less alone in your opinion.

[muzani]

"Woman" sounds a bit old, "girl" sounds a bit young. "Guys" (or "you guys") is slightly gender neutral, so many people would use "guy" as a gender neutral term, and avoid "gal" altogether.

In my native language, there is a semi-formal term we use which is neither rigid nor offensive... "tuan" for men (Sir) and "cik puan" for women (Miss Mrs). For English, I think the closest to this is "lady", and this might be why many non-native English speakers use "sir".

[gshdg]

What’s old about “woman”? “Woman” means “adult female human being”. That includes 18-year-olds.

[muzani]

It should, but that's just not how society uses it. A google image search doesn't turn up many 18 year olds.