colloquialismsgrammatical-gendersingle-word-requestsslang
I don't know how to define the usage of man I'm talking about*, so I'll do it with examples:
Hey, man, what's up?
C'mon, man, don't make me do this.
Is there a female or gender-neutral alternative for this word or is this sort of talk restricted to men only?
Is "man" in the examples a normal noun or is it a different grammatical phenomenon, maybe an interjection of sorts?
I agree that the term, cool, is inappropriate for a formal letter, research paper or even a magazine review if the audience is known to be experts themselves in the subject. To say a film is cool is reductive and might get a few of your readers rolling their eyes. Ironically, I believe that to be cool one ought to avoid using that expression; it's becoming overused, but that's my personal opinion.
The OP ought to consider how people from the 40s, 50s, 60s and possibly early 70s would have expressed the same concept. (Now someone will tell me that "cool" meaning impressive, admirable, inimitable, and wow was first used in 1800s or thereabouts.) 1
When I was living in London as a child, cool usually meant mildly cold or indifferent, wicked was associated with witches and criminals, and sick meant vomit. We did use bad though, when we meant "very good".
However, much depends on who your readers are. If I had to describe a new car or a hi-tech gadget, and compliment it on its design or features I might very well opt for "a cool design" and "cool features". But if I wanted to be more specific, (or original) I'd choose from one of these adjectives instead: (in no order of preference)
For a film/movie review you would probably need a different list, unless you were commenting on the camera shots then many of those suggested above would fit. A "cool" movie could also be described as being:
Actually, I'm beginning to realize just how versatile "cool" is...
Without having an example sentence, it's hard to suggest a perfect fit, but I would suggest "seat hog" or "seat hogging."
There's even a whole blog dedicated to posting pictures of this sort of people. (I tried to pick a photo with a non-obvious gender) From that blog:
SeatHog – noun – \ˈsēt-hog\ – a selfish or clueless individual who deprives another individual of any reasonable or unimpeded opportunity to sit down.
(In my dialect in regular IPA: /ˈsi:tˌhɑg/)
The sort of picture they share:
Washington state's Sound Transit* uses "seat hog" to teach people how to ride the train. (Included the other ones because they're cute too.)
For readers unfamiliar with this use of "hog," it follows this OED definition:
[6] b. orig. U.S. Chiefly with modifying word: a person who appropriates or monopolizes something in a greedy and selfish manner. Cf. hog v.1 7b.
Best Answer
In many contexts, you can use there instead of man:
If you're familiar with the addressee and use a friendly or jocular tone, you can often use you in place of man:
However, it may sound brusque in other contexts, and I wouldn't recommend it with strangers:
If addressing a group, you can use folks (if you don't mind sounding a bit folksy):