[ta82828]

I am male. When I was in school I was on a project with two women. I asked them if the term "guys" bothered them. They both said no. I even used it when there were only women in the group. Guys is the plural of you in some dialects of English.

"Hot" has many many meanings other than "sexy". When not referring to a person's attractiveness, it means "popular, being paid a lot of attention to" or "high in temperature", or "fast" or "contains a lot of energy".

[ilyanep]

You are implying that a few individual women you know being okay with a thing implies that it is alright / not sexist / shouldn't be offensive to other women. I'm not necessarily sure that that follows. (This is independent of whether or not the term 'guys' is sexist or offensive to women or anything else).

[ta82828]

I will accept many corrections for the benefit of diversity, but when even the majority of the disadvantaged group uses the word in a non-hostile way, I stop feeling like I'm being asked to be helpful and start feeling like I'm being micromanaged and controlled by people who refuse to take into account the obvious intent of my words that the majority of listeners understand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You#Informal_plural_forms

  Informal plural forms
  Despite you being both singular and plural, some dialects 
  retain the distinction between a singular and plural you 
  with different words. Examples of such pronouns sometimes 
  seen and heard are:

     ...
  you guys – U.S.,[2] particularly in the Midwest, 
             Northeast, South Florida and West Coast; 
             Canada, Australia. Used regardless of the 
             genders of those referred to
     ...

(I live, work, and went to school in Northeastern U.S.)

[4ydx]

If you explain your intent and they still feel offended, I do wonder how one should react to that. It feels to me like someone who is being pedantic who thinks they are "right". Who knows, maybe it does offend enough people that this usage will decline.

[ta82828]

Well, it's judgement call, but offense alone is not enough to change behavior IMO. There was a case where a person reading a history book about the KKK in the presence of blacks was accused of harassment because the picture on the cover depicted: the KKK. That's just ridiculous.

[4ydx]

I just realized that my wording was pretty vague. I would err on the side of not changing your attitude. I say this primarily because using one persons reaction (or even a few peoples reactions) to something you do as a test for deciding if you should reevaluate yourself would make you chase your tail like a dog: there would be no end to it. But yeah it is mostly about intent, in my mind. Disagreement is necessary but not sufficient for change.

[Frondo]

If you care about them and want them not to be offended, you'll change your behavior.

If you don't care about them and don't care if they're offended, keep on doing whatever.

[ta82828]

Automatically changing your behavior every time someone is offended is not rational. Sometimes people are unreasonable in taking offense:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25680655/ns/us_news-life/t/univers...

[Frondo]

If you care about someone, and they're offended, then you'll change your behavior.

I'd venture to guess you're also both rational adults, and you if care about someone, and they're offended at lots of different stuff (sexist language, passing clouds, the endless sea), then you could talk about why passing clouds and the endless sea offend them.

This really comes down to human decency; if you see women as people first, worthy of respect and care, then you'll probably want to minimize how much you offend them, instead of placing the problem of being offended on them.

[alextgordon]

You should follow the prevailing culture of the place you're in. On the internet, a meeting of 190+ countries, anything goes.

Certainly, my experience of America was that you guys say "you guys" all the time. The composition of the group is irrelevant. It transcends particulars.

But if you live in a subdistrict of California where "you guys" is taken completely literally, then by all means stop.

[s73v3r]

In the context of referring to an algorithm, it's pretty hard to see it to meaning anything other than sexy.

[ta82828]

I've never actually heard an algorithm called hot. If I did, my first instinct would probably be confusion, not that the algorithm is "sexy, sleek, or elegant". If I had to put a meaning to the phrase, it would make me think the algorithm is either CPU intensive, or very fast.