Discussion Forum (Archived)
Guest
I do not use Y'all, but I have unquestionably heard Y'all used in the singular. It blew me away totally. One memorable instance involved the utterance of a woman from San Antonio, Texas. Another, a woman from Alabama. Both were Ivy League educated, both instances were perfectly spontaneous, and both were followed with a strong affirmation that Y'all can be singular.
I'm from Kentucky, Louisville specifically. In my experience y'all is recognized as "Southern" style. Even used in Boston, it would be thought of a Southern dialect usage. Unhappily, Louisville is ever confused about where it is: too north to really be southern, but clearly not Yankee. Not really mid-west, but not eastern or western either. We are ambivalent about "y'all" too. My observation is that native Louisvillians use "y'all" exclusively as plural, and avoid using any possessive form, reverting to "standard" English like "yours". (Your's ??) But this gets muddled by the non-natives, which outnumber the natives, and speak every imaginable style and accent. Interestingly, I've found that people speaking English as a second language pick up and freely use "y'all" very quickly. Most languages seem to have a plural for "you", and “y'all†fills this void very easily.
It's intereting how everyone knows what Y'all means and recognizes it as a Southernism, even if they never use it themselves. When my wife tells people that she's from Texas, they tell her, "You don't have much of an accent." Then, if she drops ONE "Y'all" into the conversation, they say, "Ohhh there's that thick Southern accent." Apparently, "Y'all" is highly-concentrated.
One more story... My mother, originally from Nevada, was managing a band in Texas in the 80s. There were both men and women in the band. She had to take a phone call so as she left the room, she said, "You guys keep practicing." When she returned, the men were practicing and the women were sitting on the side watching. Of course, she should have said, "Y'all keep practicing."
I would add "You guys" as a substitute for "Y'all" in our area (Northern Nevada). And how about the use of "Yous" in the Bronx? Seems to serve the same purpose as "Y'all". I've even heard, "Yous guys," which I love. I'd use it, but I don't think I could pull it off.
I love all y'all, y'all got that? Although I'm from western PA and currently live in Wisconsin, I use y'all. Picked it up from a southern branch of my family.
Yous is definitely an East Coast thing. Friends from Philly and Jersey tend to use it. And of course, there's the Pittsburgh "yinz" or "yunz," meaning the same thing. It becomes "yinzes" in the plural.
Glenn said:
I do not use Y'all, but I have unquestionably heard Y'all used in the singular. It blew me away totally. One memorable instance involved the utterance of a woman from San Antonio, Texas. Another, a woman from Alabama. Both were Ivy League educated, both instances were perfectly spontaneous, and both were followed with a strong affirmation that Y'all can be singular.
I agree. Being from Dallas, I've always heard "y'all" as both the singular and the plural, but, having spent 12 years in the frozen northland, I have begun to use "y'all" as strictly pleural. I still find myself using it in both ways, but it just doesn't sound right in the singular. Consequently, I tend to use it as strictly pleural. I do find myself using it in the singular sometimes, though.
For years I have been telling my friends back home in Illinois that–for some reason–I've always used the word, "y'all", but when I moved to Texas I discovered that, while "y'all" can be used as singular or plural, the preferred plural is "all y'all", and also that there is the possessive, "y'all's", as in, "Is that y'all's car over there?" I find it all very folksy and informal and I love it…even if "y'all's" looks funny when written.
Speaking of the way things are written, and with all due respect to my neighbor, John Herzog (seriously, he probably lives less than 30 minutes away from my house in Fort Worth), the proper way to write the word is not "ya'll", but "y'all" (because it is the contraction for "you all"). I swear I was actually planning to write about that even before I came to this discussion page–in fact, as soon as I listened to the minicast–because I have noticed the incorrect spelling a lot lately, and it really bugs me.
NOT a southerner, and I usually don't agree with Martha, but, Grant, you're toast on this one. Y'all is a word I use regularly and use it as singular or plural. (As one of the biggest sticklers among your listeners for correctness, I admit this may be wrong, or at least contrary to the spirit, i.e., "all" being more than one, but it is commonly used as a plural, which usually meets your standard for acceptability.) Never ever y'alls's or y'all's'. Just y'all's. Or how about y'all'n? I like that one. No one has ever heard it before but now that I've coined it, it's permanently part of the lexicon and deserving of respect. Mine, your'n, y'all'n.
Martha 1 Grant 0
Y'all take care now.
Oh, I have to add this. The best ever fan banner at a baseball game was at the last game of the world series between the Yankees and Atlanta Braves. The game was at Yankee Stadium and the sign said "Y'all go home now." A twist on the Southern pleasantry "Y'all come back now." Brilliant. It still makes me laugh.
Jackie said:
And of course, there's the Pittsburgh "yinz" or "yunz," meaning the same thing. It becomes "yinzes" in the plural.
Is yunz related to you'uns? English doesn't have a separate word for plural you, but ya'll, yinz, yunz, yous and you'uns seem to indicate that we want one.
Does anyone know if older English ever had a plural you, and when (or more interestingly, why) it fell out of use?
telemath said:
Does anyone know if older English ever had a plural you, and when (or more interestingly, why) it fell out of use?
Yes, English did once have a plural second-person pronoun, and it was (wait for it!) "you". At one time, "you" was strictly plural and "thou" was singular. You can see a remnant of the original pluralness of "you" by the fact that we say "you are/we are/they are"; all those plural pronouns take the same forms of the "to be" verb.
telemath said:
One more story... My mother, originally from Nevada, was managing a band in Texas in the 80s. There were both men and women in the band. She had to take a phone call so as she left the room, she said, "You guys keep practicing." When she returned, the men were practicing and the women were sitting on the side watching. Of course, she should have said, "Y'all keep practicing."
Your story, telemath, immediately brought to mind something I had heard before. When I was teaching ESL students in California -- where "y'all" is used less frequently -- I used "you guys" once in class, which comprised about twenty women and five men. One of the men, actually, immediately asked me about it, and I had to explain that it was a habit that apparently most native-American-English speakers have in one form or another (which is, of course, the subject of this thread). Whether "you guys", "y'all", "you'uns", or "you all" (and maybe "yous"? New Yorkers and Jerseyites?), we all seem to somehow accommodate the circumstantial need to differentiate singular and plural second person references. However, since it was pointed out to me in class, from then on I used the more stilted "all of you" in class. (Oh, and, by the way, I use "y'all" occasionally, even though I lived in the South for only a few years; however, I almost never used "y'all" while I lived in the South, sort of as a marker of not being a native---chalk it up to trying too hard to be a rebel, or just different, I suppose.)
Ron Draney said:
telemath said:
Does anyone know if older English ever had a plural you, and when (or more interestingly, why) it fell out of use?
Yes, English did once have a plural second-person pronoun, and it was (wait for it!) "you". At one time, "you" was strictly plural and "thou" was singular. You can see a remnant of the original pluralness of "you" by the fact that we say "you are/we are/they are"; all those plural pronouns take the same forms of the "to be" verb.
And just to fill out what Ron said, which was correct, "[T]hou was at one time the singular subjective case (thou art a beast), while thee was the singular objective case (he cares not for thee). In addition, the form thy (modern equivalent your) was the singular possessive determiner, and thine (modern equivalent yours) the singular possessive pronoun, both corresponding to thee. The forms you and ye, on the other hand, were at one time reserved for plural uses. By the 19th century, these forms were universal in standard English for both singular and plural, polite and familiar." Oxford American College Dictionary 1446 (2002). In the U.S. and in Europe, the Quakers apparently "forsook the use of you because it was at the time the second-person pronoun employed when addressing superiors. The thou they chose in preference to you was used in the 17th century to address familiars or inferiors, affirming to them the equality of mankind." Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins 596 (Robert Hendrickson ed., 3d ed. 2004). So, although I have no additional research to back this up, you might have also been used singularly as a form of respect, not unlike the Spanish usted. Hope all of this helps.
This need to distinguish singular from plural second-person may have gotten Ross Perot in trouble. Back when he was running for president, he addressed a group of African-American businessmen as "you people". Roar was upped; many were convinced he was making a point of setting them apart, unlike himself and people like him.
I prefer to observe that this was shortly after he started using "handlers" to prepare him for appearances. I expect someone gave him the advice that he should stop saying "y'all" because it made him sound like a hick to anyone from a part of the country where that's not standard speech. So here's Perot, facing a room full of people and wishing to make the point that what he's saying applies to all of them, and to those not present that they represent, his linguistic instincts are screaming at him to use a plural, but so is this idea that he's not to say "y'all" under any circumstances, and his mind comes up with "you people" as the only compromise.
Ron and Tunawrites,
Thank you both for the thorough explanations. I had heard the story of the polite/familiar differences*, and the singular/plural distinction threw me off. I was left wondering - was is a singular/plural difference or a formal/familiar difference. Apparently, the answer is yes. Thank you for the whole story.
*My church advocates addressing diety as "thou" and "thee", placing emphasis on the need for a familiar relationship with diety. The polite/familiar explanation comes up frequently in religious lessons.
An interesting aside is that many people who adhere to using the familiar thou/thee/thy/thine completely misunderstand it as a more formal, polite, or respectful form of address to be used with God. As you point out, the revolutionary beauty of this use of thou is its familiarity.
This misunderstanding has driven me into a handful of frustrating and fruitless conversations over the years: even when the historical reality of the use of thou is pointed out and proven, some still insist that it is more respectful and polite.
I'm not a "Y'All" user, generally, being a Northerner ( I can't say a Yankee, since I'm a Red Sox fan), but we have visited the Carolinas and Georga several times. In my experience, Y'All can be singular. But when the plural is definately intended, there's always "All Y'll" just for good measure.
I'm originally a northerner transplanted to North Carolina. I've heard the debate before, but mostly I stick to my original supposition that "y'all" in the singular is a northern mistake, even if a few descendants of northerners have perpetuated it. But I freely confess that I want to believe that; as many have pointed out here already, the language needs a second-person plural.
One additional note about "thine": Tunawrites is right about it being a possessive pronoun ("is this car thine?"), but it's also the correct substitute for "thy" before a vowel, exactly like "a" and "an". "A car", "an altar"; "thy car", "thine altar".
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
1 Guest(s)