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In Defense of Y'All

texasmonthly.com

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Re: In Defense of Y'All

#121

Post by coldpie »

mystified5016 wrote: post #100
gregw2 wrote: post #11

I tease non-Texans that Texan English is actually superior to normal American English because it supports second-person plural via "Y'all" exactly as mentioned in this article... "you guys" is, to some ears, sexist, and "youse guys" (a New York-ism) is a little too old-school Italian. English lost its second person plural when we switched from Thou (second person singular formal + Thee=second person singular informal…

This whole thread is extremely confusing to this Appalachian native. Y'all is used quite widely throughout the entire southeast. It's recognized, if not used, through the entire country. I've also seen its use increasing in the Midwest as it seeps out of the south. Do many people actually see this as a novel word? It's incredibly common from my perspective here in Ohio.

> Do many people actually see this as a novel word?

Where I live, yeah. I live in Minnesota and I intentionally use "y'all" here because I think it neatly fills the need and I want it to catch on, but it definitely feels like an affectation. It's not something you hear unless someone is from out of town or going out of their way to use it intentionally (like me).

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#122

Post by causi »

I still don't understand why some Hollywood writers are so out of touch with reality that they create characters with horrible fake Southern accents saying "y'all" as a singular pronoun. Nobody would actually do that unless they have brain damage.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#123

Post by treetalker »

greenavocado wrote: post #56

Y'all is the American informal second-person plural pronoun Spanish: "ustedes" (formal) and "vosotros" (informal in Spain) or "vos" in some regions French: "vous" is the standard, but informally there's "vous autres" in Quebec French Portuguese: "vocês" formally, but "cês" informally in Brazilian Portuguese German: While "ihr" is standard, some dialects use "ihr alle" or regional variants Italian: "voi" is standard,…

In both the Midwest and the South, I often hear "you guys'" (pronounced "you guyses").

I'm enjoying you guyses thread.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#124

Post by wepple »

skrebbel wrote: post #110

As a non-native English speaker, I love "y'all" because it lets me directly translate our word for, well, "y'all" to English. I seriously struggle to formulate sentences such that it's clear from context that I mean "plural you" in this here case. So what happens is, I start saying a sentence that has "you" in it, and at the "y" I notice that it'll be unclear, I quickly bend it to "y'all", and the day is saved! Hoora…

What’s your word for it?

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#125

Post by Meph504 »

As a southern from the New Orleans area, ya'll is as natural a part of everyday language as it comes, and generally when it is heard by people who aren't from the south it comes off as smug, or cringe. Generally because they put a strong emphasis on the world, when it is rarely warranted.

It's like when people try to pronounce "New Orleans" as "nawlins" (to be clear, no one native says it this way, its tourist trap t-shirts that pronounce it this way), or some other such silly thing. Conversely there are many words that are said in unique ways in the region and part of being accepted as a transplant is people who learn to say those words with the regional dialect.

It may come as a shock, but I doubt anyone in the south (outside of the irish channel) really gives the New York Times opinion on southern language much of a second thought.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#126

Post by harimau777 »

mauvehaus wrote: post #16

Counter-proposal: Bring back "thou" as the second person singular pronoun and restore "you" to its rightful place as the second person plural pronoun. As with so many of English's warts we can blame the French for the situation we're in. Vous in French is used when addressing a single person formally and conveys respect for the addressee. When class and station were more important following the Norman conquest of Eng…

I don't have enough linguistic background to understand the distinction, but I've also heard that using "will" for "intent to do something in the future" is somehow linguistically unusual because previously that job was used by "shall".

Sorry I can't give more details, I forget what the actual distinction between the two is. I just recall that it apparently creates difficulty when English speakers learn Romance languages that still have their equivalent of "shall".

Edit:

Apparently, the distinction can either be a lot more relevant or a lot less relevant than I thought depending on the context (e.g. legal text vs. everyday speech).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shall_and_will

It's interesting how much of language is invisible to a native speaker. If you had asked me, I would have said that most people never use "shall". However, now that the article points it out, I realize that native speakers use "Shall we " all the time.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#127

Post by coldpie »

tmtvl wrote: post #114
laurentlb wrote: post #106

It's indeed useful to distinguish singular you from plural you, which is something that most other languages do. As a non native speaker, I'm sometimes confused and wish to see a distinction between between singular and plural they (they-all?)

I thought 'they' is always plural? I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they.

> I thought 'they' is always plural?

You see someone two blocks away doing something unusual and say, "what are they doing?"

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#128

Post by sidibe »

causi wrote: post #122

I still don't understand why some Hollywood writers are so out of touch with reality that they create characters with horrible fake Southern accents saying "y'all" as a singular pronoun. Nobody would actually do that unless they have brain damage.

The only place I see people saying y'all can be singular is nonsoutherners on the internet erroneously trying to explain why people say all y'all. I've never seen that in Hollywood even you got any examples?

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#129

Post by sidibe »

zikduruqe wrote: post #35
desert_rue wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the Georgian version is different. “Y’all” is singular while “all y’all” is plural.

From North Carolina originally. "Y'all" is singular, "all y'all" is plural, and "all y'all MF'ers" is when you are angry and it could be singular or plural depending on the connotation.

You must have moved before you started speaking. But nice to see people in the thread recognizing it's not just Texas

Y'all is plural. All y'all is short for all of y'all.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#130

Post by alistairSH »

skrebbel wrote: post #110

As a non-native English speaker, I love "y'all" because it lets me directly translate our word for, well, "y'all" to English. I seriously struggle to formulate sentences such that it's clear from context that I mean "plural you" in this here case. So what happens is, I start saying a sentence that has "you" in it, and at the "y" I notice that it'll be unclear, I quickly bend it to "y'all", and the day is saved! Hoora…

Hooray for Texas!

"Y'all" didn't originate in Texas. Or, rather, nobody's really sure where it started, but it definitely isn't unique to Texas and more likely came from the Deep South.

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