"Y'All" - Filling a gap in the English language

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http://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/2005-02-15/velasquezmanoff-yall

Ever since English lost the second person singular “thou,” it has relied on the pronoun “you” to act as both singular and plural. Since then, English speakers have continually improvised ways to avoid ambiguity in the second-person plural: in the Northeast, “youse” or “youse guys”; around Pittsburgh “yunz” or “yinz,” a contraction of “you-ones”; in the South, “y’all,” a contraction--or “fusion” as Bailey and Tillery say--of “you-all”; and finally “you guys,” if not quite a national standard, the media standard.

Do y'all say "y'all"? If not, what are other options for a second-person plural? Would you personally prefer "you" to take it's rightful place as second-person plural and resurrect "thou" (or perhaps the more modern "bitch") as second-person plural?

― Zebra, Alpha Go! (cprek), Thursday, 24 February 2005 18:59 (twenty years ago)

Fuck all y'all.

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:03 (twenty years ago)

"you" as second-person plural blows

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:03 (twenty years ago)

Oddly, "y'all" seems the most elegant option of the ones given.

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:07 (twenty years ago)

I say y'all, but I have southern roots on my father's side.
Ressurecting "thou" will never happen, barring a puritan renaissance.

― The Argunaut (sexyDancer), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:07 (twenty years ago)

I have no southern roots (well, okay, Grandma was a Texan Jew) but I say "y'all" all the time. I don't know why, it just rolls off the tongue.

Y'all come back now, y'heah?

it just comes natcheral-like.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:09 (twenty years ago)

"...barring a puritan renaissance...."

That isn't as farfetched as it sounds, y'all...

― andy --, Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:11 (twenty years ago)

Seriously though I could see "bitch" gaining ground in the language.

"Would bitch please loan me $10?"
"Bitch has got to be kidding."

― Zebra, Alpha Go! (cprek), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:11 (twenty years ago)

I know Maritimes who say "ye" for a plural "you".

― Huk-L, Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:11 (twenty years ago)

"Youse" sounds like "use." That's no good. "Youse guys" is just a mouthful. "Yinz" in nonsense. "Y'all" is distinctive, one syllable, and needn't be said in a drawl, depending on your preference. Best option, 'nuff said.

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:13 (twenty years ago)

http://www.cincinnati.com/local/florence/Images/yall180x119.jpg

― boris y'alltsin (nickalicious), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:14 (twenty years ago)

HEY YUNZ GUYS

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:14 (twenty years ago)

"Y'all" when used by whites outside of the South, always sounds a little odd to me. I hate it when it's used as faux inclusionary rhetorical device - like "c'mon y'all, we can all agree on this [completely wrong idea]."

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:16 (twenty years ago)

i'm as yankee as they come, and i say/write "y'all" all the time. as someone upthread said, it is the most elegant (and i add the most practical) gap-filler.

"youze" sound too low-class, loutish and uneducated, like sylvester stallone or andrew dice clay or meatheads like that. and "yinz/yunz" is too local/provincial.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:18 (twenty years ago)

i betcha that hip-hop is very much to credit/blame for non-southerners warming up to "y'all."

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:20 (twenty years ago)

I'll vote for 'y'all' too. 'You all' often sounds awkward though I sometimes use 'all of you'. I could not say 'youse' without affecting some kind of accent and it seems less grammatically correct than 'y'all'.

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:24 (twenty years ago)

Eisbar OTM

― Zebra, Alpha Go! (cprek), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:25 (twenty years ago)

I probably picked it up from the Beastie Boys more than my cousins.

― The Argunaut (sexyDancer), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:26 (twenty years ago)

I hear it more as a regional thing than a Black or White thing.

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:33 (twenty years ago)

Y'all is elegant and concise -- inclusive (none of the awkward gender issues raised by "you guys"), colloquial but not crude, flexible, friendly. An excellent contraction. A-plus.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:35 (twenty years ago)

I think it's usually terrible coming from non-Southerners. I may be biased against it as my mother is from Arkansas. She actually only really uses it when speaking to other Southerners.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:38 (twenty years ago)

In England we normally say "you lot".

― The Horse of Babylon (the pirate king), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:07 (twenty years ago)

this is boring yall

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:22 (twenty years ago)

"You lot' sounds accusatory or denigrating somehow to me.

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:27 (twenty years ago)

I say it every so often. Then Spencer frowns at me and I am ashamed.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:28 (twenty years ago)

xpost: that's the english far ya

― The Argunaut (sexyDancer), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:29 (twenty years ago)

destroy: those who spell it "ya'll," which happens quite often. EEDIOTS.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:29 (twenty years ago)

I bet my old English teacher that there'd be ONE second person pronoun in widespread use by 2020. I collect $100 if I'm right (and he's still alive), so GET CITING, PEOPLES.

― edward o (edwardo), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:29 (twenty years ago)

Bah, SECOND PERSON PLURAL.

― edward o (edwardo), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:30 (twenty years ago)

http://www.dollsoup.co.uk/guffman.jpg

"It's the day of the show, y'all!"

― Aaron A., Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:30 (twenty years ago)

Actually Ned, I don't think I've ever heard you use it - and imagining you saying it does not bother me. Perhaps you are a Southerner at heart!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:31 (twenty years ago)

i'm kinda surprised how many people outside the south apparently say yall! is ain't common also? how bout the old scold expression "ain't ain't a word"?

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:32 (twenty years ago)

Actually Ned, I don't think I've ever heard you use it - and imagining you saying it does not bother me. Perhaps you are a Southerner at heart!

:-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:33 (twenty years ago)

My cousins in Passaic county NJ say "yiz." "Yiz wanna go out?" Uh, wha?

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:33 (twenty years ago)

OTOH, I dislike when it's used for 2nd person singular. It's like accusing someone of having multiple personalities.

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

o man this reminds me, i think i've brought this up before, but i might *fingers crossed* be going to a taping of the blue collar comedy tv show.

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:35 (twenty years ago)

xpost
LOL

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:48 (twenty years ago)

Hey, y'all, stop listening to the voices in your head, k?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 24 February 2005 22:48 (twenty years ago)

OTOH, I dislike when it's used for 2nd person singular.

The only time I ever see this is in movies or TV shows about the South written by people who don't understand the lingo. Nobody in the South that I've ever met uses y'all as a singular.

(I also love "all y'all" -- the best 2nd-person-plural-plural ever.)

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:14 (twenty years ago)

It sounds a bit affected if you don't have a southern accent. Also very common in NYC street slang, as lots of blacks emigrated there from the south.

That water tower photo upthread is in Florence KY. I believe it once read Florence Mall and when the Mall never got built, it was changed to Y'all.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:28 (twenty years ago)

my grandma says y'uns but I swear to god she picked this up in the last ten years. She's lived in Indiana her whole life. Here in St Louis there's like one part of town where people say 'yous'--not quite youse, as I imagine the second syllable of 'youse' being a bit more emphasized/drawn out. How does German handle second person, I think it might be related to german settlers in that area?

I don't really have a southern accent I think but I do say y'all all the time in casual conversation.

― teeny (teeny), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:43 (twenty years ago)

I'm from Chicago and I (and everyone else I knew) used to say "ain't" as a kid, and yes, my mother would say "ain't ain't a word and you ain't gonna use it"

― ()ops (()()ps), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:45 (twenty years ago)

oh, and I grew up in eastern arizona where a lot of texans settled, although the southeastern dialect crept into missouri also, so y'all is common here in certain groups.

― teeny (teeny), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:45 (twenty years ago)

I thought ain't was standard American parlance by this point. I say it all the time.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:51 (twenty years ago)

Spencer OTM, as regards spoken language. I think it looks all right in print.

y'all

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:55 (twenty years ago)

Spencer OTM, as regards spoken language. I think it looks all right in print.

y'all << all y'all << fuck all y'all

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:57 (twenty years ago)

I started saying "y'all" when I came to college because I lived next door to a girl from Texas, it's an excellent word! People laugh when I say it, though, because I'm so northern. Of course, "my friends," "my brothers in solidarity," and "ladies and gentlemen" work for more formal contexts.

― Maria (Maria), Friday, 25 February 2005 00:15 (twenty years ago)

"How does German handle second person, I think it might be related to german settlers in that area?"

"Youse" was also quite common in my heavily German-settled hometown of Cincinnati, so you might be onto something. People there also used "please" in place of "pardon me" which I always guessed had German roots. Bitte? Y'all was rare in Ohio but my grandparents in Louisville said it all the time (where I got it).

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Friday, 25 February 2005 00:16 (twenty years ago)

I always say yall, but I never use the apostrophe because it feels a bit forced. Spencer I think you're exaggerating the southern connection - lots of people, like me, just say it because we've spent a big portion of our lives wishing we were black. Is that wrong?

― LeCoq (LeCoq), Friday, 25 February 2005 01:24 (twenty years ago)

i have never said "y'all"

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 February 2005 01:24 (twenty years ago)

What happened to "fucking the south"?

― Richard K (Richard K), Friday, 25 February 2005 01:37 (twenty years ago)

Australians tend to say "youse", though its pretty slack slang to do so. I think I say "you lot" or "you guys" if I have to.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 25 February 2005 04:09 (twenty years ago)

the real test is if you can unselfconsciously use the second person plural super-possessive which is pronoucned yall-ziz.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Friday, 25 February 2005 04:36 (twenty years ago)

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