No Stupid Questions

When I was working as a line cook in college, I was one of two white guys behind the line, with the rest of our BOH (Back Of House) crew being black. One day on the line we were all joking around like we always did. One of the black cooks, named Rose (he was an older guy, with coke-bottle glasses and strong, thickly calloused hands. He had a snaggle tooth and a big ol' pot belly), was regaling us with stories about how he has a veritable harem of women at his beck and call. He told us he was supporting like 5 different women, and all of them were entirely devoted to him.

I thought that he was being hyperbolic, and decided that I would poke fun. I was going to say something like "Rose, I can't believe for a second that even 1 woman would be after your ugly mug." But my midwestern-whiteness shone through, and before I could deliver that absolute blister of a line, I decided to use an exclamation so as to punctuate my lack of belief in his statement. I started with "Ooh boy," and didn't get to finish.

I was immediately accosted by Rose, his spatula gripped tightly, and he was mad as hell. The other line cooks were instantly aware of the situation and reacted to hold him back, as Rose was about to knock my befuddled ass into next week. Eventually they were able to calm him down, and explained to my dumbass that calling a black man "boy" was explicitly racist, and derogatory.

We were fine once he realized I had no idea it was racist, I just thought of it as an exclamation along the lines of "Boy howdy!" or something.

It was a very eye-opening moment.

I'm sure it'll piss someone, somewhere off. Literally everything does. Watch, I'm about to post "I'm sure it'll piss someone, somewhere off. Literally everything does." on Lemmy, and it'll piss someone off.

They're idioms and not meant to be taken literally.

Look at it this way, if you're talking to someone who gets offended because you said "Oh boy", you really, really don't want to be having any more conversations with a person like that, so it's kind of a win/win situation

Can we all just agree that Dude is a gender agnostic term and doesn't just refer to men. It's what Bill and Ted would have wanted.

Yes. It's ONLY supposed to be used when you find yourself leaping from life to life. Striving to put right what once went wrong. And hoping each time that your next leap will be the leap home.

I don't make the rules. I just enforce them.

If anyone gets upset at that, start saying 'Oh trans masc' instead of 'oh boy' until they leave you alone forever.

Saying "Oh boy" in the way you would say "Oh my" or "Oh wow" is not gendered in the sense that you aren't calling anyone around you "boy", but rather saying it to yourself as an exclamation; just like how religious people say "Oh God!" or "Oh my God!"; if you said "Oh God", you wouldn't be calling the other person "God".

IMO, "oh boy" would have a definition of "wowza!" Whereas "oh girl" would have a definition of "sassy!". In this vain, I declare "oh boy" to be gender neutral.

Same goes for "awww, maaaan"

I got into an internet argument with someone who claimed similar with my usage of "dude."

In the wise words of a great poet of our generation, "I'm a dude, he's a dude, she's a dude, we're all dudes, hey."

I still use dude with everyone.

Who would be misgendered by saying it? You aren't referring to the person you are speaking to when you say it imo, it's a hypothetical boy

I’m not a native English speaker, but I always thought an expression like “oh boy” was more self-reflective. Like you say it more to yourself than to whoever you’re talking to.
In which case, the other’s gender shouldn’t really matter?
In any case, I personally don’t feel insulted or misgendered if someone uses it in a conversation with me.

I interpret it as being analogous to "oh wow". Some people will say "oh boy" in place of "oh wow", kind of similar to how my friends will say "I know right" but I and some other people will instead say "I know eh".

In a similar vein, I'm curious about the modern consensus on "you guys," as in, "what do you guys want to do this weekend?"

Oh fuck

I've never had problems using terms like "look man," "oh boy," or "dude" In "normal" conversion with anyone until recently. I was talking to a trans-woman I know and definitely stopped myself from dropping "hey man" in our conversation because I thought she would not appreciate it. That's caused some self reflection and while I'll probably continue to use genderbent language when talking with my wife I'll probably seek to minimize it elsewhere. I don't really know how in tune a given woman I'm talking to is with their muliebrity and it seems not my place as a cis man to make that determination for them.

I would say for a lot of people it probably doesn't matter, but for those that it does it does a lot and it's no skin off my back to try to be courteous in my speech with whomever.

Oh my?

I don't think it's a gendered term, but you could switch to "oh snap"

No, it's known as an interjection