Only a true Texan can tell you the difference between "y'all" and "all y'all".
"all y'all" is an abomination.
Using numbers to ab6te words is an abomination. All y'all is fine.
In Defense of Y'All
81–90 of 381 posts
Re: In Defense of Y'All
#82The new second person plural is "chat". I can't decide if I'm making a joke or not by saying that.
"chat" is a fourth person pronoun, it's a hivemind pronoun.
Re: In Defense of Y'All
#83As a child of Appalachia, I suggest that we all compromise on you'ens, or as it's commonly pronounced yinz.
sometimes a T is included - yintz
Re: In Defense of Y'All
#84As a child of Appalachia, I suggest that we all compromise on you'ens, or as it's commonly pronounced yinz.
Half my family says yinz, half my family says you’uns. They’re both correct as far as I’m concerned.
Re: In Defense of Y'All
#85The new second person plural is "chat". I can't decide if I'm making a joke or not by saying that.
Is it second person though? It feels like most of the times I've heard it in person, outside of a real livestream, it's sort of been for asking a question into the aether as emphasis. "Chat, are you seeing this?" to emphasize something stupid they're seeing. It's not really spoken TO the person doing the stupid thing, it's spoken to this imaginary crowd to emphasize that what the other person is doing is obviously st…
I could imagine saying "God, are you seeing this?" to playfully emphasize something sinful they're seeing. Or similarly "Hey FBI, did you know about this?" to playfully point out that something is (or seems) illegal. Or someone says "Mike Tyson isn't that great a fighter" and someone else pretends to look at someone behind them and go "Hey Mike, what do you think about that?". It's all kinda just pretending some other entity is watching these events for humor, and I think it's all just 2nd person.
Or you could say something like "Chat likes it when I rap", but that's similar to "God likes it when I genuflect after making a touchdown" or something -- it's just standard 3rd person with a flair.
People have a tendency to over-emphasize how unique new speech patterns are. This same thing happened with "literally" being English's first "auto-antonym" -- it wasn't really, it was just a slightly different form of sarcasm. "OMG I literally died! Like I'm genuinely dead now. None of you are hearing this because I'm totes a corpse. I'm completely serious you guys, I literally have no pulse anymore." -- I can imagine all of that being in the same vein, but it's hard to argue that that means "genuinely" and "totes" and "completely" are all auto-antonyms too. Or that "riiiiiight" is an auto-antonym because it actually means "wrong". Things just aren't that new in language.
Re: In Defense of Y'All
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it second person though? It feels like most of the times I've heard it in person, outside of a real livestream, it's sort of been for asking a question into the aether as emphasis. "Chat, are you seeing this?" to emphasize something stupid they're seeing. It's not really spoken TO the person doing the stupid thing, it's spoken to this imaginary crowd to emphasize that what the other person is doing is obviously st…
I could imagine saying "God, are you seeing this?" to playfully emphasize something sinful they're seeing. Or similarly "Hey FBI, did you know about this?" to playfully point out that something is (or seems) illegal. Or someone says "Mike Tyson isn't that great a fighter" and someone else pretends to look at someone behind them and go "Hey Mike, what do you think about that?". It's all kinda just pretending some othe…
Ahhhh yeah I see what you mean. I'm probably thinking a bit too literally about 2nd person vs 3rd person. My example is an imaginary side conversation, where "you" = "Chat", so it's 2nd person, but the intent to me "feels" third person when spoken, as chat/God/Mike etc would never refer to someone in the room. (not that it matters in the context of labeling something 1st/2nd/3rd person in this case though) That's what's messing me up I think. Sorry about that.
And your God example, yeah maybe this is not a new linguistic phenomenon haha. I can very much imagine some middle age priests taking a jab at one another with "God, are you seeing this?" as father Percival takes another swig from the hip flask.
Re: In Defense of Y'All
#87Let's not forget the second person negative and the wonderful contraction of "you all are not".
y'aint.
Re: In Defense of Y'All
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some sets have a canonical partition. If you're referring to a set of birds or a set of fish, then the correct usage is y'all because those sets canonically partition into themselves. But if you're referring to a set of birds and fish together, then the usage is "all y'all" because the canonical partition yields more than one subset (one containing birds, and one containing fish). The distinction helps differentiate…
It means "everyone with no exceptions". All y'all need to come to my BBQ tomorrow. I can't eat 50 pounds of brisket by myself.
This is the correct interpretation.
Re: In Defense of Y'All
#89Y'all forever. One of the few southern mannerisms I intentionally don't drop as a lapsed southerner in California. As an aside, I find it strange how many aspects of "the south" are labeled as "Texan" outside the south. I lived and visited all over the Deep South and y'all was standard vernacular pretty much everywhere. I'm not saying Texans don't say y'all, but they definitely don't have any unique claim to using it…
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.
That's so fascinating to me! "Howdy" definitely ranks higher on my hokey-ness scale than "y'all".
Love a good "over yonder" though.
Re: In Defense of Y'All
#90The new second person plural is "chat". I can't decide if I'm making a joke or not by saying that.
Is it second person though? It feels like most of the times I've heard it in person, outside of a real livestream, it's sort of been for asking a question into the aether as emphasis. "Chat, are you seeing this?" to emphasize something stupid they're seeing. It's not really spoken TO the person doing the stupid thing, it's spoken to this imaginary crowd to emphasize that what the other person is doing is obviously st…
It is definitely second person plural. I have heard my daughter use it (deliberately ironically) many times not in the form of questions, like "Chat, today we're going to be making toast."
I admit that I have never heard it used in anyway except as a noun of direct address, so it may not be a full-featured second person plural pronoun.