For a number of years, my wife and I have been silent about the following topic. We both understand that over time, language and word usage changes. We're both in the "older" generation and much has changed since we were in our 20s.

But one change in particular is very irksome, especially to my wife.

That change is the current practice of greeting everyone as "guys."

We are greeted in restaurants by the person seating us as "guys." The service technician at the car dealer say that "you guys" can wait here for your car to arrive. And so on.

Perhaps we're a tad oversensitive. But my wife is not a "guy." She is a woman and proud of that!

We've gently corrected some of the above folks, but that is often an awkward thing. We realize that we're bucking the current, but it is important to us.

So, please, all you folks in contact with the public: Realize that there are some who are offended by being called a member of the sex they are not.

-- EUGENE P. FOLEY, Wilkins

Though it was well over a half-century ago, I can still remember the admonishment, in a writing class, to avoid at all costs the use of bromides -- tiresome, trite words or phrases. In spite of the passage of all these years and all the admonishments, the great-granddaddy of all bromides has survived and, even worse, proliferated:

"Gunned down"!

From The Wall Street Journal to Time, Newsweek and, yes, even the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, this phrase describes the plight of some unfortunate (usually deceased) individual, be they heroes or hoodlums.

No one, it appears, is ever "knifed down," "poisoned down" or "assaulted down."

-- JIM TREHER (retired, FBI), Bethel Park

Here are three words/phrases in common use that I believe to be misleading:

1) A quantum leap is, really, not a huge change. Rather it is very, very minuscule.

It takes place at the atomic level and is described as a change of an electron from one energy state to another within the atom. It is discontinuous (quantized), so certain energy levels are allowed and others are excluded.

2) I cringe when I hear someone say "wait on me" meaning wait for me. "Waiting on" someone either means you are atop that person or giving them a meal.

3) People use the term "Ugly American" to describe, for example, bad behavior on the part of U.S. travelers overseas. In fact, in the book "The Ugly American," the title character is the hero of the story, set in Southeast Asia in the 1950s.

He an engineer, named Homer Atkins, who goes into the boondocks to help the natives draw water from wells. He is called "ugly" only because of facial features, not his attitude.

-- STAN BARKIN, Wheeling, W.Va.