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In Defense of Y'All

texasmonthly.com

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Re: In Defense of Y'All

#361

Post by starkparker »

sangnoir wrote: post #338
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”).

> Where I come from, everyone is “a guy”. Gen Alpha (and younger Zoomers) are working hard to make "bro", "bruh" and "dude" gender-neutral[1] everywhere - and they are succeeding. In decade, those complaining about "you guys" will seem quaint. 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/teenagers/comments/184ni9j/does_any...

> bruh

"breh" was and will be gender-neutral in south Louisiana long after everyone else has forgotten any debates around whether or not it actually is or whatever it was co-opted from

have a feeling hawaiians feel similarly about "brah"/"braddah"

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#362

Post by reaperman »

extra88 wrote: post #358
HelloMcFly wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

20+ years ago, a coworker from Memphis said "y'all" was singular, "all y'all" was plural. I wasn't going to honor that but it was interesting.

As a Texan...that person's assertion makes no sense. I have never heard anyone else ever claim that y'all should be used as a singular pronoun.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#363

Post by reaperman »

jhbadger wrote: post #347
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…

There's also "Yinz", these days mostly used in Pittsburgh (and even then mostly by older people). It is unfairly dismissed as "regional" in the article, but so are the others, really. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinz

I believe y'all is growing substantially in geographic prevalence over the past 10 years or so. Most people who are exposed to it for a little while tend to assimilate it into their own lexicon surprisingly quickly - the gap in English is really a vacuum that very much wants to be filled.

Personally, I desperately want a socially-adoptable singular vs. plural differentiation for "them".

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#364

Post by e40 »

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”).

I’m on the west coast. I was talking to a neighbor about their barking dog and exclaimed “dude!” when she lied directly to my face (her dog was barking and she said it wasn’t her dog). Her reaction? Angrily saying she was a woman. Dude has been gender neutral for many decades around these parts.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#365

Post by extra88 »

reaperman wrote: post #362
extra88 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20+ years ago, a coworker from Memphis said "y'all" was singular, "all y'all" was plural. I wasn't going to honor that but it was interesting.

As a Texan...that person's assertion makes no sense. I have never heard anyone else ever claim that y'all should be used as a singular pronoun.

Do you mean you wouldn't only use y'all for singular? I assume you would say "how y'all doing" to one person or multiple people.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#366

Post by hotsauceror »

ksymph wrote: post #144
hotsauceror wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a native Texan myself, "y'all" is one I've always hated, from my earliest youth. It just seemed excessively hokey and hayseed. I unapologetically, unironically use "howdy", "a piece", "a ways", "over yonder", "get to goin'", and "fixin' to". But "y'all" is a bridge too far.

I grew up mostly in the north and talk very northernly, but somehow the only exception is that 'howdy' became my standard greeting. 'yall' feels like too much, but 'howdy' just rolls off the tongue so smoothly. Other greetings always sound too terse (hi, hey), too formal (hello), or are questions (how's it going, what's up) which I just loathe. Though technically howdy is sort of a question too, coming from 'how do y…

"A piece" is a measure of distance, longer than "over yonder", shorter than "a ways".

"She lives up the road a piece."

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#367

Post by parpfish »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #348
Minor49er wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Guys" means "people". I have grown up in the Midwest as well where it's common to hear girls and women use it to address all-female groups. It's basically like how "mankind" or "man" is short for "humankind" or "human" and not for "male". These are also backed up in dictionaries that are more than a few years old One of my former employers only a few years ago announced that they would ban the term "guys" because so…

I’ve said “you guys” all my life (grew up in the northeast) but I’m a professor and teach mixed-gender classes from all over the world. Plenty of people are completely fine with “guys” as a gender neutral term and express bafflement that there would be a problem. However: a non-trivial percentage find it weird, not necessarily because HR told them to, but because it really sounds odd to them. One person asked me if i…

but why is the prescription for speakers to converge on a single homogenous blob of usage rather than encouraging listeners to acknowledge and understand the diversity of uses?

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#368

Post by ubertaco »

paulmooreparks wrote: post #239
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.

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.

Seconded. In my entire North Carolina + Georgia upbringing, with frequent visits to Tennessee and back to NC, and some visits to South Carolina, Florida, and Alabama...never once have I heard y'all referring to a single person.

It's literally a contraction for "you all". That doesn't make sense for talking to one person.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#369

Post by ubertaco »

From the NYT article:

>Some have even suggested “y’all,” a word that reads as much too slangy, regional or what you might even call ethnic to ever gain universal acceptance.

Heaven forbid we embrace something that could be called "ethnic"! Something something must secure a future for our linguistic monoculture.

I wonder if this writer would've written the same thing, but with "bruh" or "fam" swapped in:

>Some have even suggested “bruh,” a word that reads as much too slangy, regional or what you might even call ethnic to ever gain universal acceptance.

Probably not, as that would've been immediately recognized as racist (because "bruh" is ethnic, despite its recent widespread adoption, in the sense that its roots are in black-culture slang – just like how "y'all" is ethnic, despite its recent widespread adoption, in the sense that its roots are in southern-culture slang).

I dunno why the NYT author feels the need to find ways to be linguistically xenophobic.

Re: In Defense of Y'All

#370

Post by troyvit »

prepend wrote: post #331
troyvit wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend from North Carolina gave me a t-shirt that's just an outline of the state, and "Ya'll" on the front. So I think you're right.

“Ya’ll” is the spelling used by carpetbagger poseurs.

Wow. Way to pick a hill.
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