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In Defense of Y'All

texasmonthly.com

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Re: In Defense of Y'All

#231

Post by JasserInicide »

parpfish wrote: post #148
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…

As a native midwesterner, I get more annoyed and defensive than I should when people complain that “you guys” isnt gender neutral. Where I come from, everyone is “a guy”. It can mean “male person”, but that’s only if you use it in specific contexts that brings up gender (like saying “guys and gals”).

It's a sentiment that's only come up in the past 15 years. Same with the "Latinx" bullshit (that white people came up with)

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#232

Post by actionfromafar »

madcaptenor wrote: post #190
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that, in at least some circles, "y'all" can be used to refer to one person.

When this happens the other people are implicit: for example "have y'all got Coke?" to a waiter at a restaurant, where "y'all" refers to all the people involved in the restaurant. (The answer one does not want to hear, at least in Georgia, is "is Pepsi OK?")

Because Coke is Soda?

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#233

Post by kanbara »

JasserInicide wrote: post #231
parpfish wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a native midwesterner, I get more annoyed and defensive than I should when people complain that “you guys” isnt gender neutral. Where I come from, everyone is “a guy”. It can mean “male person”, but that’s only if you use it in specific contexts that brings up gender (like saying “guys and gals”).

It's a sentiment that's only come up in the past 15 years. Same with the "Latinx" bullshit (that white people came up with)

[flagged]

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#234

Post by Ajedi32 »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #205
Ajedi32 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of other situations in English where the masculine plural is gender inclusive (probably because so much of English is borrowed from romance languages). For example, "actors" can refer to both male and female actors, "actresses" cannot. Identity politics has resulted in certain groups making concerted efforts to try to eliminate such usages, but it's still an ingrained part of our language.

[flagged]

"it" in this case referring to gender inclusive masculine plural nouns as a feature of the English language, not the particular use of "you guys" as one. That phrasing may well be new. Actually it seems like the phrase "you guys" is itself pretty new, see: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=you+guys&year_...

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#235

Post by zdragnar »

richardfontana wrote: post #140
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…

I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone use "youse guys", but "youse" without "guys" is indeed a now-archaic New Yorkism. However, it doesn't have any particular connection to Italian-American New York other than the fact that "youse" was a native New York dialect formulation that US-born children of Italian immigrants, along with many other ethnic groups, adopted naturally. I understand that "youse" is prevalent in a nu…

"yous" (slightly different s sound) is also common among the rural older generations in German and Dutch immigrant areas. My grandma used it all the time, though not with the double plural "youse guys", just "yous"

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#237

Post by HelloMcFly »

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…

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say "y'all" somehow belongs to Texas, it's roots are almost certainly in other areas of the South and Appalachia where it is still used just as frequently as it is in modern-day Texas.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#238

Post by kerkeslager »

I have political/social beliefs I believe are ethically right. It's tempting for me to think that people who agree with me, agree with me because my beliefs are right. But ultimately I think peoples beliefs (including my own!) are often a result of social inertia--I believe what the people around me believe--than any sort of logical reasoning process.

Case in point: the NYT and its NYC-based journalists often[1] share political views with me, because we're both from major Northeastern cities. It's tempting for me to assume that the NYT is thinking reasonably, but then stuff like this comes up and...

"Y'all" is just clearly a simple, elegant solution to a linguistic problem. I don't have strong feelings against "yinz" or "youse" except to say that even though I'm from an area where people say "youse", I think both these are harder to say. But "y'all" is clearly better than "you guys".

Dismissing a linguistic solution as "slangy", "regional", or "ethnic", is frankly, idiotic, and I think it comes from one of the uglier parts of Northeastern big city thinking (and yes, this applies to West coast big cities too). The places city folks dismiss as "flyover states" have a lot of smart people in them with good ideas. Yes, people in these places are often limited by a lack of education--a problem for which coastal cities are in part to blame. But a lot of good ideas don't require a lot of prerequisite education, and "y'all" is one of them. It's not "smart" or "educated" to dismiss "y'all", it's bigoted.

I'm not from a place that says "y'all", and "y'all" is one of the first things I adopted when I moved to the south. John McWhorter should be embarrassed.

[1] Less often in recent years.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#239

Post by paulmooreparks »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #99
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…

Except that, in at least some circles, "y'all" can be used to refer to one person.

I grew up in the deepest of the deep South. Never did I ever hear "y'all" refer to a single person. I don't know where this trope originated. "Y'all" is definitely plural.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#240

Post by mjhoy »

mosburger wrote: post #113

I live in Maine, one of the most northy north U.S. states, and I now use y'all all the time. It's totally fit for purpose. Edit: In fact I use it so often at work that my very prim-and-proper British colleague now uses it often and unironically, which is kinda hilarious.

I’m from Maine and say it all the time as well :)
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