The Ascent of Guy
10th November 2022
The word GUY so pervades American speech that a detailed account of it would hardly seem necessary, yet the multiple meanings of the word guy are quite complex and are connected to the structure of English. Contemporary English is in a schismatic state between those who make use of or prescribe generic nouns and pronouns, such as man and he ‘human being’, and those who view these constructions as signs of a deeply sexist structure of English. Generic uses of man and he have now long been the targets of “politically correct” language reforms, the chief objection being that a word that primarily signifies the masculine gender cannot also signify the feminine gender or serve as a nongendered or gender-inclusive lexical item. Both man and he primarily signify the masculine gender, but they are also polysemous. English man ‘male human being’ developed from the Old English grammatically masculine noun man(n), whose meaning was originally ‘human being’, and hetook on generic functions after the loss of grammatical gender in the Middle English period. Semantic change is not an uncommon phenomenon, but such changes should not be taken as clean, crisp breaks with the past. The prototypical meaning of a lexical item may change its focus, but the old meanings can still remain connected peripherally. The cognitive model behind the multiple meanings of man and he, despite the current trend to eliminate their generic and inclusive uses, must still be powerfully active in the minds of English speakers, for the development of the word guy closely parallels their meanings and functions.