The Sprawl of Y'all

July 10, 2005 10:30 AM

The use of "y'all" is slowly but steadily gaining acceptance in standard English far outside . . . 'the South'. Why is it becoming so popular, when other . . . southernisms show no such acceptance? Language is a fluid thing.
posted by spock (265 comments total)

thank god for that. what fresh hell would we be in if in a hundred years if "you's guys" became was common parlance?
posted by ab3 at 10:39 AM on July 10, 2005

ahem. excuse me. i meant:

thank god for that. what fresh hell would we be in if in a hundred years "you's guys" was common parlance?
posted by ab3 at 10:42 AM on July 10, 2005

lol what fresh hell have y'all come up with now
posted by nervousfritz at 10:44 AM on July 10, 2005

When I was a kid in NYC I'd never heard the expression "wait on" used to mean "wait for" (as in "I've been waiting on you for an hour - where have you been?). I first heard it in Colorado. Now it seems to have migrated east, and can be heard in the national media.
posted by QuietDesperation at 10:44 AM on July 10, 2005

I like "y'all" because it differentiates between just one person and a group of two or more, which is usually done via context but not always.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 10:45 AM on July 10, 2005

I do tend to use it, but, generally, in a self-mocking mode...
posted by Samizdata at 10:46 AM on July 10, 2005

Many black people I've known in NYC use "y'all" possibly learned from southern relatives. Their white classmates probably picked it up from them. New York speech is weird. You'll hear people of all nationalities use yiddishisms like "schmuck," and "oy vey," mainly because they hear them and like the sound of them.

I'd like to see "reckon" come into more general usage, myself cause it's a cool word. I reckon I'll post this now, y'all.
posted by jonmc at 10:53 AM on July 10, 2005

The first non-southern use of y'all I noticed was rap musicians. Seems like it's often in the form of the phrase "fuck all y'all". What's next "fixin' to"?
posted by Carbolic at 10:54 AM on July 10, 2005

It's gender neutral? And it spread via not only black people in the north, but pop music (rap, rock and soul)?
posted by raysmj at 10:55 AM on July 10, 2005

I would never use it, and find its use completely unacceptable in New England. We didn't send all those men to die in the Civil War just to become linguistic France to Jesusland's Germany.
posted by Mayor Curley at 10:56 AM on July 10, 2005

Why is [y'all] becoming so popular...?

Because only stupid people say it; and sadly, stupid people know no state boundaries. However, it at least serves as an easy litmus test when first meeting someone; if their vocabulary includes "y'all," then you can easily and immediately adjust your opinion of their IQ downward.
posted by nlindstrom at 10:57 AM on July 10, 2005

Just remember "y'all" is PLURAL. The singular is "thee" or "thou".


(2nd person) NOM OBJ POSS

singular: Thou Thee Thy (or thine)
plural: Y'all Y'all Yourn (or yours)


"NOM" is the nominative case, "OBJ" = objective case, "POSS" = possessive case.
posted by davy at 10:58 AM on July 10, 2005

some areas of the upper midwest do have some southern influence ... around s.w. michigan, i've noticed a tendency for some to say "hey" instead of "hi" or "hello" ... and y'all does seem to be spreading a bit
posted by pyramid termite at 10:59 AM on July 10, 2005

Metafilter: Fixin' to fuck all'yall, I reckon, for making youse guys wait on me in this fresh hell.
posted by rolypolyman at 10:59 AM on July 10, 2005

Because only stupid people say it; and sadly, stupid people know no state boundaries. However, it at least serves as an easy litmus test when first meeting someone; if their vocabulary includes "y'all," then you can easily and immediately adjust your opinion of their IQ downward.

Yankee.
posted by ladd at 11:03 AM on July 10, 2005

Metafilter: Fixin' to fuck all'yall, I reckon, for making youse guys wait on me in this fresh hell.

G'head, fuckin A, yo.
posted by jonmc at 11:03 AM on July 10, 2005

I've got kin in the south, and spent a fair amount of time there a as a kid, so I've always sorta used the expression but without thinking about it. I also 'Hey' folks a lot.

When I moved to London I noticed 'aim' and 'reckon' were far more commonly used then they were back in NYC, which I found interesting.
posted by Mutant at 11:04 AM on July 10, 2005

I'll let languagehat deal with nlindstrom. I'm sure no small part of the opposition is that y'all is a contraction, which a lot of people seem to have a problem with for some reason.

I'm Californian and a college graduate in linguistics, and I've been saying y'all ever since picking it up on a visit to Alabama in the 6th grade. It doesn't make any sense to use an ambiguous word like you when there's a readily available alternative, y'all.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 11:04 AM on July 10, 2005

jonmc: I look forward to the use of "sho 'nuff," myself. (Listen to Wilson Pickett's "I'm in Love," written by Bobby Womack, for a great use of this."I'm in Love," he sings, as a semi-angelic choir coos in the background. "Yes, i am . . . Sho 'nuff in love." And that's pretty much the whole song.)
posted by raysmj at 11:04 AM on July 10, 2005

Yeah, what Optimus Chyme said. I think it's glaringly obvious: modern English needs a distinct second-person plural. You in Middle English was the second-person plural, with thou as the singular. But thou took on the intimate form of the second-person pronoun, leaving you to do double-duty.

Many regional dialects of modern English have their version of the second-person plural.

On Preview: "Just remember 'y'all' is PLURAL."

For any of us native in a dialect featuring y'all, it is humorous to hear someone attempt to use the word, usually to affect Southern speech, but as a singular. To my ears it sound extremely wrong; although I vaguely remember that there are some dialects where the singular use of y'all is allowed. But, if so, it's the exception, not the rule.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:05 AM on July 10, 2005

"Y'all" is not a contration of "you all." It is actually a contraction of formal, olde Engish, "Ye all." Also, the article's statement that the contraction is not used in Florida is incorrect as it is widely used there, most notably north of Disney World.
posted by swlabr at 11:06 AM on July 10, 2005

Why is [y'all] becoming so popular...?

nlindstrom answered: Because only stupid people say it; and sadly, stupid people know no state boundaries.

This is to inform you that I have adjusted my estimation of your IQ as far down as it can go and still allow for functional literacy, and that I have also found your moral character is quite aptly labelled "bigoted scum". You are now dismissed.
posted by davy at 11:07 AM on July 10, 2005

As others have said, it's because modern English lacks a proper plural second-person pronoun, which is intuitively a very handy thing to have (as you discover whenever you learn a language that actually has one). I've caught myself on a few occasions saying "y'all" casually when there's some reason to emphasise the fact that I'm directly addressing more than one person, and I can assure you, nlindstrom, that not only am I not stupid, I also happen to be a professional editor and writer -- and so I have great respect both for the rules of English, as well as for its inherent flexibility and fluidity. You, however, appear to be both ill-informed and a snob.
posted by scody at 11:11 AM on July 10, 2005

Because only stupid people say it; and sadly, stupid people know no state boundaries. However, it at least serves as an easy litmus test when first meeting someone; if their vocabulary includes "y'all," then you can easily and immediately adjust your opinion of their IQ downward.
posted by nlindstrom at 10:57 AM PST on July 10

Cool post, bro; maybe you should go back to slashdot.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 11:11 AM on July 10, 2005

"I'd like to see "reckon" come into more general usage, myself cause it's a cool word. I reckon I'll post this now, y'all."

Wow, I'm not the only one. jonmc, join me in spreading use of the word. I reckon if we try hard enough, we can spread it to all of New York!

As for y'all, I have a feeling that the strong regional prejudice against the South that's everywhere in the Northeast will prevent its use here for a fair amount of time. Oh well. I reckon it might could make an appearance some day.
posted by invitapriore at 11:12 AM on July 10, 2005

Like all these forms, y'all is still exclusively a part of the spoken language.

We didn't send all those men to die in the Civil War just to become linguistic France to Jesusland's Germany.

Mayor Curley, youse should 'a let dose Southern states go when you had the chance.
posted by three blind mice at 11:13 AM on July 10, 2005

I second what davy just said above.
posted by marxchivist at 11:13 AM on July 10, 2005

A recent AskMe has some comments relevant for this thread.
posted by sbutler at 11:13 AM on July 10, 2005

nlindstrom, don't be a dick, ya'll.
posted by kalessin at 11:14 AM on July 10, 2005

"Why is it becoming so popular...?"

NASCAR marketing. Just a theory...
posted by paulsc at 11:14 AM on July 10, 2005

By the way, I don't use y'all, although I did as a child. Modulating my speech socially upwards, but unable to abandon the usage, I now occasionally say "you all". Less and less frequently, I think.

Languagehat will probably amble along sooner or later and he'll likely be very annoyed with nlindstrom. Or maybe not. In any event, I'm a lot more sanguine on the matter as I think that it's unlikely that dialects (and particular "rules" of usage) will ever be completely disassociated with social status. And, frankly, I've always been a bit curious why many people don't recognize this and modulate their speech accordingly.

On Preview: 'Y'all' is not a contration of 'you all.'

Historically, maybe not. In many contemporary uses, it is.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:15 AM on July 10, 2005

In Pittsburgh we had "youns", pronounced something like yewns, short for "you ones." We also had "uons", short for "us ones." So it goes like this: "youns goin dawn there? Uons stayin here."
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:16 AM on July 10, 2005

As for y'all, I have a feeling that the strong regional prejudice against the South that's everywhere in the Northeast

That prejudice is mainly confined to white, educated people. Like I said above, a large portion of northeastern blacks have family from down south who use "y'all" reflexively. In midwestern cities like Chicago, Detroit and St.Louis there are tons of transplanted white southerners who brought "y'all" with them, too. And New Yorkers are fond of linguistic quirks like "youse," "g'head," "whaddaya," "yooman." etc. (I have relatives who sound like extras from Marty).
posted by jonmc at 11:19 AM on July 10, 2005

May I suggest a correlation between the spread of y'all and the popularity of a certain Miss Spears?
posted by slimslowslider at 11:21 AM on July 10, 2005

Good article on the subject here.
posted by realcountrymusic at 11:21 AM on July 10, 2005

"Y'all" is not a contration of "you all." It is actually a contraction of formal, olde Engish, "Ye all."

You're kidding, right? You know that the first letter in "ye" isn't a "y" right? It's a "thorn"-- the old english alphabet had separate letters for "th" and thorn stayed in "the" even after it was vestigial.
posted by Mayor Curley at 11:22 AM on July 10, 2005

as a born and bred northwesterner, i've heartily resisted most all southernisms since i moved to texas. y'all is the notable exception, for a number of reasons, most already covered in this thread.

1. american english needs a second personal plural formation of this sort.
2. it's gender neutral. "you guys" is not. "you all" is just to asinine to be dignified with consideration.
3. it's short and efficient. one syllable, easy to distinguish.

and while "y'all" might sound silly when spoken by some, i'd stipulate that it's mostly due to their accents, not the word. i actually think that it sounds pretty good in my west-coast drawl, thankyouverymuch.

i will say that northeasterners criticizing southerners for their accents/phrases/other idiosyncrasies is really the nail not driven in very far, as this thread makes apparent. personally, i think that you yankees sound more ridiculous than pretty much anyone, even if you're not as easily stereotyped.
posted by spiderwire at 11:26 AM on July 10, 2005

Ethereal Bligh quoted me thusly: "Just remember 'y'all' is PLURAL."

You even typed in the changed quotes. I'm impressed by your pedantry, sir! (I was only kidding about "thee" and "thou"; please don't hurt me.)

My southern Appalachian girlfriend with a degree in linguistics just told me that one may use "y'all" when speaking to one person when one is addressing that person as a representative of a larger group. E.g., ParisParamis could address me as "y'all" if he meant "that group of libertarian leftists among which you number yourself". Context provides a weighty clue here.

However she herself rarely uses the word (never in anything but casual settings among others of like background) because, as you said, "it's unlikely that dialects (and particular 'rules' of usage) will ever be completely disassociated with social status." That is, she gets tired of having to deal with scum like nlindstrom on anything like its own level.
posted by davy at 11:26 AM on July 10, 2005

i'll likely lose my southern heritage membership, but i'll share a bit of a secret: many southerners know they are underestimated due to the slowness of their speech and the use of terms like y'all; however, the same southerners know that being underestimated often carries an advantage. so where many would just(ly) call nlindstrom an asshole and leave it at that, the wiser of us are more skilled at using his prejudice against him.
posted by troybob at 11:28 AM on July 10, 2005

**too asinine, even.

i realized as i posted that i would listen to an argument for canadians and minnesotans being slightly more ridiculous than yankees. i actually find australian accents endearing, but they might get included just for weird phrases alone.

"I will not partake in the wholesale defilement of American parlance!" --Opus (B. Breathed, U. Texas alum.)
posted by spiderwire at 11:31 AM on July 10, 2005

however, the same southerners know that being underestimated often carries an advantage.

I remember reading an interview with a southern born cop, who said something along the lines of "when they hear the drawl, they think I'm dumb and let down their guard. It's great for getting confessions."
posted by jonmc at 11:32 AM on July 10, 2005

troybob: shhhh!
posted by spiderwire at 11:32 AM on July 10, 2005

Languagehat will probably amble along sooner or later and he'll likely be very annoyed with nlindstrom.

Nah, nlindstrom made such a blithering idiot of himself he's a good poster child for linguistics. "Listen to what I'm telling you, or you'll end up like nlindstrom!" Also, davy gave him such a whupping I don't need to do anything but laugh.

You're kidding, right? You know that the first letter in "ye" isn't a "y" right? It's a "thorn"-- the old english alphabet had separate letters for "th" and thorn stayed in "the" even after it was vestigial.

You're kidding, right? You know that the first letter in "ye" is a "y" right? It's been there since Proto-Indo-European times, oh, about [looks at watch] 6,000 years ago, give or take fifteen minutes. But you're probably kidding. I hope.

On preview: davy also deals with the "speaking to one person" issue and is right on target.
posted by languagehat at 11:33 AM on July 10, 2005

I was raised and currently reside in north Florida, have a master's degree and say y'all every day. I also use the word reckon when it's appropriate. If you were to have a conversation with me, I think you'd find me literate, educated and not at all socially backward.

I will have to admit though, that sometimes hearing other southern natives speak (notably from Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi) makes me wince.
posted by hollygoheavy at 11:35 AM on July 10, 2005

I've been in Georgia for 8 years now. When I first got here, y'all was nails on a chalkboard to my California ears. It wasn't until I started learning Spanish and realized the importance of a second person plural tense that I came to accept y'all wholeheartedly. Now I use it liberally.
Also, I've developed a genteel southern accent by choice. I find people warm up to it faster than any other accent (and I've had a few in my time) and it helps me very much in my job as a journalist. People outside the south, while still warming to the accent, tend to look down upon you. However, it is easy enough to use this to one's advantage. They never see the southerner coming. Just look at our past several presidents.
posted by TheGoldenOne at 11:36 AM on July 10, 2005

When I moved to southeast Texas from Seattle when I was six years old, to live with relatives with strange midwestern accents, my schoolyard "HEY YOU GUYS!"s were met with blank stares and the cold shoulder. I quickly learned to say "y'all"--my first "y'all" was strange and canned, but as I'd hoped, it was the way (maybe the only way?) to capture the attention of the other six-year olds.

The first time I heard the word y'all, I was standing in a friend's home--she was 7--in the kitchen. There was a valentine made from red construction paper on the refrigerator. It read, "DEAR MOM AND DAD I LOVE YAW." I poked her and said, "That isn't how you spell 'you.'" She said, "That isn't 'you,' that's 'y'all'."

I was in trouble all the time in first and second grade, because of my incredible disrespect for authority, for not appending "ma'am" to my yeses and nos. The first time I heard "ma'am," the teacher leaned down, so that we were nearly nose-to-nose, and kept hissing at me, "Say ma'am! Say ma'am!" And I was just in total shock.

In the sixth grade, I tried desperately to make myself enjoy country music. I listened to it on the radio every day.

Eventually, I discovered it was simply easier to move out of the state. So at the end of high school, I did.

I visited my tiny hometown recently, and when I walked into a taqueria, several tables of people burst out laughing. I felt six years old again. "What's going on?" I asked my best childhood friend. "You look like you came from a city," she whispered back.

nlindstrom: Y'all was my childhood survival tool. Amending my lexicon to match that of the geography was the only way I knew I could keep from being marked as an outsider, rescuing me from the bullying of the oh-so-popular "kickers" and 4H kids. Not that it helped at all, at least till I moved away. On preview: Ohhh, what Davy said.
posted by jennanemone at 11:36 AM on July 10, 2005

"I'm impressed by your pedantry, sir!"

It would have been pedantry if I had intended for it to be instructive. Like this comment. No, for some reason when quoting I use both italics and double-quotes habitually. I'm forced to change quoted double-quotes because otherwise it looks hideous.

On Preview: "davy also deals with the 'speaking to one person' issue and is right on target."

Yes. But that wasn't what I had in mind (or maybe it was and I'm just confused). That use of the plural doesn't seem obscure to me, it's necessary. When I am referring to myself as representative of a group, I use we. It would be strange not to use the plural when the context is plural.

posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:39 AM on July 10, 2005

I frequently use "y'all" in spoken English when I intend an informal "you" (plural) just as I would for German "ihr" or "euch." I'll politely ignore anyone foolish enough to think I'm doing it out of stupidity. I've spent more than half my life in the US South and feel I've earned the privilege.
posted by alumshubby at 11:39 AM on July 10, 2005

spiderwire: i will say that northeasterners criticizing southerners for their accents/phrases/other idiosyncrasies is really the nail not driven in very far, as this thread makes apparent. personally, i think that you yankees sound more ridiculous than pretty much anyone, even if you're not as easily stereotyped.

I'm rather fond of the Simpsons episode in which the Kennedy-esque politician keeps teasing the butler for pronouncing the name of a popular soup "Chow-DARE" rather than "CHOW-da". The basic moral of the story, people who shift their vowels and and drop soft consonants from their spoken speech have no right to be snobbish about the regional linguistic quirks of others.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:42 AM on July 10, 2005

StickyCarpet, yinzer gun git dahn frum dere when ah reddit up.
posted by kcm at 11:46 AM on July 10, 2005

jonmc - You might be interested to know that "reckon" is pretty frequently used in the UK, as well as in the South.
posted by Artw at 11:47 AM on July 10, 2005

"Y'all" is not a contration of "you all." It is actually a contraction of formal, olde Engish, "Ye all."

Says who? The OED lists the first instance of "y'all" from 1909. I sho' know that ain't nobody speakin' no "Olde" English in the South then.
posted by grouse at 11:47 AM on July 10, 2005

Dubliners prefer "youse". I've managed to pass that on to my other half and my colleagues. I'm fairly sure I've never heard anyone use "y'all" in my circles in New York.
posted by jamesonandwater at 11:48 AM on July 10, 2005

It would have been pedantry if I had intended for it to be instructive.

But pedantry is the ostentatious application of your learning, not necessarily for teaching purposes.

</pedant>
posted by grouse at 11:51 AM on July 10, 2005

The basic moral of the story, people who shift their vowels and and drop soft consonants from their spoken speech have no right to be snobbish about the regional linguistic quirks of others.

Agreed, and as far as I'm concerned regional speech quirks are a refreshing blast of humanity in an increasingly homogenized world. But some accents are more stigmatized than others. Theonly one that recieves more flak than a southern accent is an outer borough New York one. My Brooklyn-raised Uncle Nick has a masters degree and works as an international banker, but his Greempernt upbringing shows in his speech. he's not above the occasional "youse" and "whaddaya" and good for him.

I remember an internet conversation where I mentioned that Carl Sagan was raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn. A freind joked that he must've trained himself not to say "Dat's a lotta fuckin' stars!"

All kidding aside. wear your acents and quirks proudly, folks.
posted by jonmc at 11:51 AM on July 10, 2005

My two year old niece has taken to saying "y'all" with no apparent influence from her relatives, growing up in central IL. I don't get it, but I think I can come to accept it. My one condition is that, in addition to using "y'all" to cover the second person plural, we come up with something to cover the third person singular of unspecified gender. I'm getting tired of saying "he or she" every time I want to discuss a hypothetical or unknown individual.
posted by scottreynen at 11:53 AM on July 10, 2005

I would guess that the current rise in usage of "y'all" has more to do with its Ebonics usage than anything else. This would explain why "y'all" is becoming more popular even though other "southernisms" are not. It would also explain why "y'all" is losing its southernness.

Ebonics is the source for a significant amount of the new slang that we use. Have you ever looked at your own conversational vocabulary (and that of those around you) and notice how much of it is Ebonics?
posted by afroblanca at 11:55 AM on July 10, 2005

Then there's Kinky on the subject:

Remember: Y'all is singular. All y'all is plural. All y'all's is plural possessive.
posted by trip and a half at 11:56 AM on July 10, 2005

Also, much of accent prejudice is class based. A Boston Brahmin accent won't hamper you, but a "pahk the cah in hahvahd yahd, retahd," will get you branded as a galoot as will a "Da Bears," Chicago one, or a "hey, brah," California one. Just saying.
posted by jonmc at 11:56 AM on July 10, 2005

I'm getting tired of saying "he or she" every time

Why not just use "they"?

Ho ho! Just kidding!
posted by jennanemone at 11:57 AM on July 10, 2005

"But pedantry is the ostentatious application of your learning, not necessarily for teaching purposes."

Right you are! I've long misunderstood the word to mean "affecting an ostentatious tone of instruction". I think I must have moved in that direction when I learned Attic Greek--I associate the root more with teaching than learning.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:58 AM on July 10, 2005

You're kidding, right? You know that the first letter in "ye" is a "y" right? It's been there since Proto-Indo-European times, oh, about [looks at watch] 6,000 years ago, give or take fifteen minutes. But you're probably kidding. I hope.

Actually, I just saw red because of the use of "olde" and all the "ye olde barne shoppe" stuff. And ended up looking dumb. But I swear, I know there's a difference between "þe" ("the") and "ye" (second person pronoun).
posted by Mayor Curley at 12:01 PM on July 10, 2005

I think I must have moved in that direction when I learned Attic Greek--I associate the root more with teaching than learning.

So does this count as pedantry or irony?
posted by spiderwire at 12:02 PM on July 10, 2005

"come up with something to cover the third person singular of unspecified gender"

and

"Why not just use 'they'?

Ho ho! Just kidding!"

There is a huge need for this. I'm right on the verge of accepting that usage of "they". Well, I already accept it in that I am not critical of others' use of it. But I'm on the verge of embracing it myself (after having purged it years ago).
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:05 PM on July 10, 2005

Born and raised in the mid-atlantic area and I use y'all all the time. I have no idea why. It's not that common around here and I definitely didn't pick it up from my parents.

It must be my incredibly low IQ.
posted by LeeJay at 12:05 PM on July 10, 2005

Also, I've developed a genteel southern accent by choice.

Poser.
posted by trondant at 12:06 PM on July 10, 2005

pedantry, and eye-rohn-eee.. live together in perfect har-mon-eee

(I still think a thick Yinzer accent is the least intelligent outward trait one may display..)
posted by kcm at 12:07 PM on July 10, 2005

My grandparents were born in Italy and emigrated to a largely Italian-American small town. To this day, their English is broken and loaded with malapropisms ("Time for dinner. Come in da chiken!"). But they're proud Americans and honest, decent people. It's because of them that I realized that anyone who judges people by linguistic quirks is a bigot. This isn't to say those quirks can't be the subject of humor. It's all in how you approach it.
posted by jonmc at 12:09 PM on July 10, 2005

trondant: Now now, there's nothing wrong with a good strategically selected affectation.
posted by spiderwire at 12:10 PM on July 10, 2005

trondant:
Yeah, posing all the way to the bank.
posted by TheGoldenOne at 12:11 PM on July 10, 2005

Screw "y'all", what I want is an inclusive / exclusive distinction in our first person plural pronouns. "We-us-not-we-you" is the shortest way I can think of to say it, and having to explicitly clarify is very rude.

"We're going to the party now!"
"Okay, let me get my party hat"
"Nonono, we're going to the party"
posted by aubilenon at 12:11 PM on July 10, 2005

I actually prefer "y'allses" -- doubly plural, and so more warmly inclusive.
posted by Hobbacocka at 12:12 PM on July 10, 2005

"So does this count as pedantry or irony?"

Both? I didn't mean that to be ostentatious. Many English words, but that one somewhat more than others, became strongly transformed in my head after I learned Greek. Of course I've forgotten it all almost completely. But the root is "child", and so "pedantry" seems to me to have more connotation about how one is treating someone else, than how one is acting. The greek words for "teaching" and related come from the "child" root (which you can see in pediatrics--iatros is "physician"). So, anyway, I was confused. Thanks for the correction.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:12 PM on July 10, 2005

Time for dinner. Come in da chiken!

Wow -- that's not just a malapropism, that's transcendent humor. I need to go laugh for a while. (Nothing against jonmc's relatives, of course.)
posted by spiderwire at 12:13 PM on July 10, 2005

And the possessive: "y'allses's"
posted by Hobbacocka at 12:13 PM on July 10, 2005

Luckily for you, Mayor, there's no one here who will treat you as you would treat others for making the same sort of mistake.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:15 PM on July 10, 2005

It's because of them that I realized that anyone who judges people by linguistic quirks is a bigot.

So if someone says "nigger" when they mean "black gentleman," it's wrong of me to form an opinion based on that?

(and whoah jesus! I am not suggesting that southern people generally talk that way. Just suggesting that a person's language does indeed say something about them).
posted by Mayor Curley at 12:15 PM on July 10, 2005

we [need to] come up with something to cover the third person singular of unspecified gender. I'm getting tired of saying "he or she" every time I want to discuss a hypothetical or unknown individual.

But we have it, and we've had it for centuries: singular they. From the article (because it ties in nicely with this thread):

Note that while singular they is semantically singular, it is syntactically equivalent to plural they; thus, singular they takes third-person plural verb forms. While this may seem odd, it is no different from the use of you, originally a plural pronoun, which today always takes the same verb form whether referring to one person or several. The reflexive and intensive form of plural they is themselves, and some speakers use this form for singular they as well; other speakers, however, use the more singular-seeming themself. Regardless, singular they is used with singular nouns, as in the sentence, "If someone is flying a plane, then they are a pilot."
posted by sbutler at 12:16 PM on July 10, 2005

Luckily for you, Mayor, there's no one here who will treat you as you would treat others for making the same sort of mistake.

You mean "be condescending," right?
posted by Mayor Curley at 12:17 PM on July 10, 2005

I don't mind "y'all" so much, but when I hear people say "axe" when they mean "ask" it's very difficult for me to take them all that seriously...
posted by clevershark at 12:18 PM on July 10, 2005

Ahhh, the South.

Where else can the word "cat" be pronounced in three syllables?
posted by pwedza at 12:18 PM on July 10, 2005

EB: I wasn't the one correcting you, I just found it funny that your explanation of misunderstanding "pedantry" sounded so pedantic.
posted by spiderwire at 12:18 PM on July 10, 2005

Even though I was born and raised in the north midwest, I picked up y'all somewhere along the line and I'm now lost with out it. I live abroad so most of my friends are non native english speakers. Whenever I have to address a group of them I start out by saying something like "where do y'all want to go?," which is only met by blank stares. Then I have to rephrase the question using "all of you" or "you guys" which feels completely unnatural.

English seriously needs a second person plural pronoun and "y'all" is the best choice. We just need to get those Brits on board...
posted by afu at 12:19 PM on July 10, 2005 [1 favorite]

and that etymology was total bullshit, just not in the way that I stupidly rushed to be the first to correct it.
posted by Mayor Curley at 12:19 PM on July 10, 2005

So if someone says "nigger" when they mean "black gentleman," it's wrong of me to form an opinion based on that?

"nigger" is not a linguistic quirk, it's a deliberate and conscious slur. Considering someone a galoot because they say "Cah" or "hahd" is bigotry, to put it in Bostonian terms, MC.

Wow -- that's not just a malapropism, that's transcendent humor. I need to go laugh for a while. (Nothing against jonmc's relatives, of course.)

Don't sweat it. Both me and my Italian-born mom laughed at it, too. Like I said, it's all in the approach, and quite frankly, I think even the most PC person on the planet would be hard-pressed not to chuckle a bit at that one.

I don't mind "y'all" so much, but when I hear people say "axe" when they mean "ask" it's very difficult for me to take them all that seriously...

my aforementioned master's degree holding uncle (and several other relatives, and many NYC raised freinds) are not above the occasional "axe." Check yaself before ya wreck yaself, my freind.
posted by jonmc at 12:22 PM on July 10, 2005

And no doubt LH will tell us that there's a good linguistic reason "ask" would mutate to "aks". Although, actually, I don't see it. "Ask" seems much easier to say.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:25 PM on July 10, 2005

Hey Bligh. waddafuk is ya prawblem? Can't youse see da pernt we're tryna make? ;)
posted by jonmc at 12:27 PM on July 10, 2005

I lived all over as a child, but spent most of my formative years in Georgia. My accent has an on/off switch which is usually tripped by other Southerners here in New York. Sometimes it comes on and my friends and co-workers look at me as if I'm crazy. Still, even without the accent, there's always y'all.
posted by Captaintripps at 12:30 PM on July 10, 2005

Perhaps nlindstrom likewise downwardly adjusts people's IQs when he notices that their skin is dark in color.

Yankee.
posted by waldo at 12:31 PM on July 10, 2005

If someone calls me a "fuckwit" when they mean "erudite white fellow", it's wrong of me to form an opinion based on that?
posted by 4easypayments at 12:32 PM on July 10, 2005

Etherial Bligh: And no doubt LH will tell us that there's a good linguistic reason "ask" would mutate to "aks". Although, actually, I don't see it. "Ask" seems much easier to say.

Well, "aks" is further back in the mouth than "ask" so it might be part of an overall linguistic shift.

I also admit that I'm willing to give other people more slack for their speech because I'm a recovered stutterer and have more than my own share of quirks wrapping my tounge around some words.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:34 PM on July 10, 2005

I much prefer the Hiberno-English plural 'yous'.

So, I reckon yous are all wrong.
posted by funambulist at 12:40 PM on July 10, 2005

"[R]egional speech quirks are a refreshing blast of humanity in an increasingly homogenized world."

Me too.

"I'm getting tired of saying "he or she" every time I want to discuss a hypothetical or unknown individual."

I like "it".
posted by davy at 12:40 PM on July 10, 2005

As an educated gentleman hailing from the south with relatives and indeed a spouse hailing from the New England territories, I'd just like to heartily tell nlindstrom to fuck off. Bigotry is not intellectual street cred.

Y'all come back now, y'hear?
posted by cavalier at 12:41 PM on July 10, 2005

Me too, KJS. Among other difficulties as a pre-adolescent I suffered from a "slushy S" and had to leave class to go to school mandated speexch therapy for something I didn't even notice and that none of my freinds ever mentioned. My echophenomena was a different story.
posted by jonmc at 12:42 PM on July 10, 2005

Why is it becoming so popular, when other . . . southernisms show no such acceptance?

It's been said to death, but it's the most attractive second-person plural. (Youse? You guys?) It's quite helpful when talking to one person about both that person and a group they belong to.

"You all" is completely acceptable, and anyone who disagrees is an assjack. I grew up in Louisville, and (though y'awl was of course most prevalent) there were definitely uses of "you all," most commonly with the stress on the "all" as in "c'mon, you *all*" spoken exasperatingly. Rare, but acceptable.

Also, I think it was generally accepted that y'awl stood for "you all," meaning plural. (Admittedly, Louisville is more Midwest than South, though I've never heard y'awl as a singular in GA, LA, TN, VA either. Maybe FL, but that's FL.)
posted by mrgrimm at 12:44 PM on July 10, 2005

But we have it, and we've had it for centuries: singular they.

That will be useful for when people correct me for using it despite understanding me, but that doesn't really solve the problem of actual confusion. "Y'all" works to distinguish the second person plural from the singular "you." Maybe I should just start saying "they" and "th'all."

I like "it".

I like to emphasize the difference between people and objects. Maybe that's just me, as I'm vegetarian and get tired of being associated with PETA and their "animals are people too" ideologies.

"We-us-not-we-you" is the shortest way I can think of to say it, and having to explicitly clarify is very rude.

How about "They and I"? That even removes the rudeness by making it sounds like the "not-you" part is something "they" decided.
posted by scottreynen at 12:45 PM on July 10, 2005

aubilenon: what I want is an inclusive / exclusive distinction in our first person plural pronouns

That's exactly what I was talking about with the Pittsburgh "Uons" (I made up that spelling.)
It means us-ones as opposed to you-ones.
You need to move closer to Pittsburgh.
posted by StickyCarpet at 12:47 PM on July 10, 2005

ot

i had speech classes in 2nd grade, where they pulled me out of homeroom with the other malspeakers. i guess it was the opposite of a lisp. mouth was sometimes pronounced "mouse." is that a "slushy s"?

/ot
posted by mrgrimm at 12:47 PM on July 10, 2005

Kinda. I woud say "yes" as "yeshhh." I didn't hear it. Along with being dosed with Ritalin for my hyperactivity (this was the late 70's before they started sprinkling it on the breakfast cereal), it fed my inferiority complex and distrust of authority.
posted by jonmc at 12:51 PM on July 10, 2005

Growing up, I think I was exposed to tons of phony southern accents on tv and in movies. For me, the archetypal experience of this is turning on my tv set and hearing Archie Bunker talking with a mouthful of molasses - I think the first time I heard him doing that, the question "What in the hell is wrong with him?" popped into my head. Just do it well if you're going to do it.

Time for dinner. Come in da chiken!
Oh, it's *that* kind of party?
posted by trondant at 12:56 PM on July 10, 2005

"As an educated gentleman hailing from the south with relatives and indeed a spouse hailing from the New England territories, I'd just like to heartily tell nlindstrom to fuck off. Bigotry is not intellectual street cred."

*claps*
posted by invitapriore at 1:03 PM on July 10, 2005

For me, the archetypal experience of this is turning on my tv set and hearing Archie Bunker talking with a mouthful of molasses - I think the first time I heard him doing that, the question "What in the hell is wrong with him?" popped into my head. Just do it well if you're going to do it.

Archie Bunker was not trying to speak southern, that was a Queens accent, and he did it quite well, actually.
posted by jonmc at 1:04 PM on July 10, 2005

friends who use 'aks' instead of 'ask'--those i've discussed it with--have a hard time changing the pronunciation...i guess anything works with practice, but when they try it comes out slowly and awkwardly, and kind of creates a distraction in the conversation...

i grew up in georgia, and never thought of y'all as anything but plural...i remember when eastwood's daughter said it in 'midnight in the garden of good and evil', she said it to another character in the singular, and it really stood out as wrong...i couldn't believe nobody on location could point it out...perhaps that's a regional rule as well..

i'm sure there are linguistic things that get on my nerves..i just can't think of what they are...but i would hope i don't think less of someone because of them...it could be i'm kind of desensitized to it, since my partner (who has a southern accent at times) often uses phrases like 'let's touch bases' and 'i can't phantom' (instead of fathom), which used to drive me up a wall, but i don't correct him...though i'll announce it here on metafilter...hahaha

and i'll admit i have at times found a new york accent on a man to be quite sexy.
posted by troybob at 1:05 PM on July 10, 2005

"I'm getting tired of saying "he or she" every time I want to discuss a hypothetical or unknown individual."

I've appropriated 'one' for this purpose. It is sort of awkward to say/write but seems most correct IMO.
posted by Fezboy! at 1:09 PM on July 10, 2005

Remember: Y'all is singular. All y'all is plural. All y'all's is plural possessive.

All y'all's base is belong to us.
posted by goodglovin77 at 1:12 PM on July 10, 2005

and i'll admit i have at times found a new york accent on a man to be quite sexy.

So, how youse doin', muddafukka?

sorry, couldn't resist
posted by jonmc at 1:12 PM on July 10, 2005

In Pittsburgh we had "youns", pronounced something like yewns, short for "you ones." We also had "uons", short for "us ones." So it goes like this: "youns goin dawn there? Uons stayin here."

Really? I go to school in Pittsburgh, and I've never heard that. People around here say "yinz" and are referred to as "yinzers."
posted by ludwig_van at 1:19 PM on July 10, 2005

hehe...actually, accents don't work so well for me in print (though i'm sure in person it's charming!)...i find i really distracting when authors do it...anybody know of any authors who do that well?

accents are awesome...i like to hear lars von trier talk...and kathleen turner has a beautiful one, though i don't know if anyone has pinned down exactly what it is...
posted by troybob at 1:20 PM on July 10, 2005

The truth is much more sinister:



Story
posted by Mick at 1:21 PM on July 10, 2005

hehe...actually, accents don't work so well for me in print (though i'm sure in person it's charming!)

sadly, troybob, I do not possess a Noo Yawk accent. This is what I actually sound like. Italy by way of Vermont mom canceled out Queens Irish Dad somehow.
posted by jonmc at 1:24 PM on July 10, 2005

And nlindstrom was all like, shaaaaa, and y'all was like, whatever.
posted by billder at 1:29 PM on July 10, 2005

"Archie Bunker was not trying to speak southern, that was a Queens accent, and he did it quite well, actually."

Huh. From trondant's comment, I was thinking, "Did Archie Bunker imitate southern speech a lot?? I don't remember that." But I recognized his as a New York accent and I'm as personally unfamiliar with those accents as anyone. (Well, in high school my senior year a kid showed up because his mom was going to the university. He reminded everyone of Stallone. He was enormously muscleman huge and had that New York Italian accent. Everybody loved him. Me and my pals argued with him, though, about rock music. We were the Van Halen brigade, to the point of painting the logo on the town's water tower. This guy hated Van Halen and said that Zeppelin was the be-all-and-end-all of rock music. We thought Zep was okay, but that his fanatacism must have been an east coast thing. Which was stupid of us, really.)

"...remember when eastwood's daughter said it in 'midnight in the garden of good and evil', she said it to another character in the singular, and it really stood out as wrong...i couldn't believe nobody on location could point it out"

I'm with you. Y'all as unambiguously singular sounds extremely wrong to my ears. Having lived in Austin for eight years, I'd come across that Kinky Friedman quote before, and it has always baffled me. I didn't notice anyone using y'all as singular in Austin--although most people in Austin don't have the Texas accent. But I know someone right from the heart of the hill country--I mean, her name is Dixie--and she didn't exhibit that usage.

Speaking of her, though, one thing I noticed and never got used to was her Canadian/Upper-Midwest "ou" in the middle of her strong Texas drawl. It's not that she ever lived up there and so I've wondered if that's not a microregionalism for central Texas? Having been married to a Torontoan, I easily recognize that "ou" and can manage it myself.

"accents are awesome...i like to hear lars von trier talk...and kathleen turner has a beautiful one"

I can't hear her accent in my head at the moment. But that made me think of Katherine Hepburn and that northeast upper-class accent. That's disapearing or even already gone, isn't it?

Which also brings to mind something I've been thinking about lately: what the heck is it that's so identifiable about 40s era American, particularly newsreels announcers and the like? Even actors from that period talk quite a bit the same way (not as pronounced). Was that the "standard" supposedly neutral American accent at the time?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:33 PM on July 10, 2005

Cool post, bro; maybe you should go back to slashdot.

after this thread, slashdot can tell 'em (that's southern for "tell them" in case y'all can't tell) to go back to meta.
posted by 3.2.3 at 1:34 PM on July 10, 2005

By the way, inspired by Curley I found that the X11 program xvkbd includes a "þ" (and a "Þ") in its Latin-1 and Icelandic layouts, but has an "ð" (and an "Ð") only for the Icelandic. Oddly enough I find neither letter in the Danish and Norwegian ones. Also, I now know that there is such a thing as a capital "thorn"; it hadn't occured to me before.

Metafilter is good for my brain.

Oddly though I couldn't get xvkbd to work under Blackbox; I had to restart into KDE. So this post now includes two tacit suggestions for bored programmers.

And before I forget, I see that (at least if one writer's understanding of Old Norse , which I'm assuming to be similar to former English because I don't want to spend all day Googling), I pronounce "the" sometimes with a þ and sometimes with an ð depending on where in a sentence the "the" falls. Is that just me or have I stumbled on something?

In closing, this thread shows that "y'all" often functions as a Southron shibboleth, albeit a fairly weak weak one. A stronger shibboleth is the local pronunciation of "Louisville", which of course pertains to this thread not at all.
posted by davy at 1:38 PM on July 10, 2005

people move?
posted by muppetboy at 1:39 PM on July 10, 2005

He reminded everyone of Stallone.

Stallone had a Bronx accent, even though he was brought up in Hell's Kitchen. In NYC, very borough has a distinct accent. The classic Brooklyn accent would be Jackie Gleason on the Honeymooners, Queens the nasality of Fran Drescher or Archie Bunker's gutturalisms. Manhattan accents echo what you'd hear on Seinfeld.

The Zep thing was probably an anti-disco thing. Zep came to represent rock virtues against disco to a lot of working-class east coasters.
posted by jonmc at 1:41 PM on July 10, 2005

Muppetbox, bowels move but people relocate.
posted by davy at 1:45 PM on July 10, 2005

A weird aside about accents: I was watching a CourtTV documetary about a Japanese bank robber in Boston, and I heard a voice over in the typical "Pahk ya cah," accent. I was surprised when they showed the cop talking and he was Asian. But It's the accent he grew up around, so it's not suprising it became his own.
posted by jonmc at 1:48 PM on July 10, 2005

I've washed away my Southern accent with the Drano of self esteem.

I'd rather die than use "ya'll."

"Ya'll," despite the cries of "I done use it ever'day" is an acceptance and promulgation of ignorance.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:51 PM on July 10, 2005

As far as I know, I've only said "y'all" once unintentialy. It actualy shocked me to hear me saying it.

And heres the thing, I meant it as a singular "you". In texas "y'all" can be singular as well as plural, just like "you". I was talking about my friend as a spesific individual, and I'd been refered to as "y'all" many times as an individual and not as part of a group.

This was in Mosquite (a suburb of dallas).
posted by delmoi at 1:51 PM on July 10, 2005

I've washed away my Southern accent with the Drano of self esteem.

or self-loathing.
posted by jonmc at 1:52 PM on July 10, 2005

I reckon y'all are no smarter than the rest of us but that y'all like to think you are. Elitists.
posted by swlabr at 1:52 PM on July 10, 2005

ludwig_van: Really? I go to school in Pittsburgh, and I've never heard that. People around here say "yinz" and are referred to as "yinzers."

Yeah, my made-up spelling is weak. Pittsburgh accents are really hard to imitate. It's somewhere between "yinz," "yonz," and "yunz." Its that special ingredient in Dennis Leary.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:53 PM on July 10, 2005

Its that special ingredient in Dennis Leary.

Denis Leary is from Worcester, Mass. Or as the locals say "Woo-stah."
posted by jonmc at 1:56 PM on July 10, 2005

I think Kinky is trolling, or something. Anyway, all y'all is used to refer to a larger group than just y'all. The distinction is much like the distinction in Spanish between "allí" and "allá"—the former means "there", but the latter means "way over there." They're both distinction that don't exist in Standard American English as a single word (there's no way "all y'all" is standard).
posted by grouse at 2:10 PM on July 10, 2005

kcm: thanks for that link! I always wondered why my old house had a toilet placed quite randomly middle of the basement..
posted by rajbot at 2:12 PM on July 10, 2005

From trondant's comment, I was thinking, "Did Archie Bunker imitate southern speech a lot??"

Yep. Well, fine, not Archie, but Carroll O'Connor. He played a southern sheriff for years on tv in In the Heat of the Night, which I assume is adapted from the Sidney Poitier movie.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:16 PM on July 10, 2005

Why not just use "they"?
Ho ho! Just kidding!

As has been pointed out by others, "they" is a perfectly good neutral third singular, and has been for centuries (more here).

And no doubt LH will tell us that there's a good linguistic reason "ask" would mutate to "aks".

Actually, it was the other way around. The OED:

Acsian, axian, survived in ax, down to nearly 1600 the regular literary form, and still used everywhere in midl. and south. dialects, though supplanted in standard English by ask...

So all y'all who go around deploring linguistic change should be saying "I axed him"; the knowledge that you're using the historic and therefore correct form should more than compensate you for snickers and raised eyebrows.

davy: Gordon's Introduction to Old Norse says "þ in the oldest Icelandic manuscripts was used both for the voiceless sound of th in English thin and the voiced sound in then. About 1225 ð was introduced, and gradually þ came to be used only initially, and ð in other positions. þ then represented only the voiceless sound, while ð.. was voiced, as in faðir, við." (Incidentally, your link reverses "voiced" and "voiceless.") In Old English they were used more or less interchangeably, though modern editions sometimes introduce regularity, either by using one initially or using þ everywhere.

On preview: The Jesse Helms, go stand in the corner with nlindstrom.
posted by languagehat at 2:18 PM on July 10, 2005

Archie Bunker was not trying to speak southern

i figured trondant was referring to later on, when carroll o'connor was in 'heat of the night' as a police chief in mississipi...

cool jonmc...if i had a recording of my voice to post, it would show zero trace of my southern upbringing...i talk too fast to have the accent...
posted by troybob at 2:22 PM on July 10, 2005

Yep. Well, fine, not Archie, but Carroll O'Connor. He played a southern sheriff for years on tv in In the Heat of the Night, which I assume is adapted from the Sidney Poitier movie.

Fair enough. But Carrol was born in the Bronx and raised in Queens, so the accent he used for Archie was an exaggeration of his own.
posted by jonmc at 2:22 PM on July 10, 2005

And before I forget, I see that (at least if one writer's understanding of Old Norse , which I'm assuming to be similar to former English because I don't want to spend all day Googling), I pronounce "the" sometimes with a þ and sometimes with an ð depending on where in a sentence the "the" falls. Is that just me or have I stumbled on something?

What you are hearing are "voiced" and "unvoiced" english "th" sounds. Some speakers of early germanic languages (among others) made a distinction between the sound that begins, say, "think" (þ) and sound that begins words like "those" (ð). The difference is that the former is made purely with your mouth and air movement, and the latter involves vibrating vocal cords as well.

And there's a general rule in english that dictates whether "the" will start with a voiced or unvoiced sound. But I can't remember what it is and it's too hot to work it out for myself.
posted by Mayor Curley at 2:26 PM on July 10, 2005

I know my language quite well, and take great pleasure in occasionally combusticating new flavors of linguististification amidst otherwise stunningly erudite book larnin' type hifaluticisms. I trust it eventually seeps through that my glossolalia is in uberrima fides - a playful rearrangement of a baroque architecture - but like, I sorta feel bad for those imprisoned in one controlling mode of dialect. But not near so much I resent those crotchwaffles that would fain standardize mine utterance - arount thee!
posted by 31d1 at 2:32 PM on July 10, 2005

Vous êtes tous des sauvages.
posted by furtive at 2:34 PM on July 10, 2005

jonmc: Denis Leary is from Worcester, Mass.

Denis Leary: "After I graduated from college, one of my first jobs was as an ice cream scoop at a Village Dairy in Pittsburgh".
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:36 PM on July 10, 2005

Best linguistic confusion ever:

The day after the blackout in NYC, I was sitting in a bar in Astoria. To one side of me was this Irishman named Fergus. On the other side was this extremely drunk guy with a Queens accent named Pau with what looked like a bad Eminem style blonde dye-jobl. Paul drunkenly babbled but he kept buying drinks, so we didn't complain. When Paul got up to take a leak, fergus leaned towards me.

"Paul's a good guy, but he's gota touch of the Albanian about him"

I though for a minute " You mean 'albino?'"

"That's the stuff."

Of course this was the same bar where a co-drinker of mine caught a cockroach with his his shot glass and asked the Armagh-born barmaid what we got for that.

"You get to keep the glass." she said.

Denis Leary: "After I graduated from college, one of my first jobs was as an ice cream scoop at a Village Dairy in Pittsburgh".

That's Dennis Miller who did grow up in Pittsburgh. You're confusing your Dennises, man.
posted by jonmc at 2:41 PM on July 10, 2005

jonmc: I was watching a CourtTV documetary about a Japanese bank robber in Boston, and I heard a voice over in the typical "Pahk ya cah," accent. I was surprised when they showed the cop talking and he was Asian. But It's the accent he grew up around, so it's not suprising it became his own.

Yeah, I think that's somewhat interesting. I have Asian-American colleagues at my University who find themselves treated as ESL students because they are outnumbered 3-1 by students from Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 2:45 PM on July 10, 2005

Ahem. MEsquite, not MOsquite, delmoi.

I grew up in that area, and cannot recall anyone using y'all as a singular--if they had, I would have assumed that they were using it incorrectly. But I wasn't actually IN Mesquite, so maybe it was town-specific.

It was a long time before I knew that not everyone said "fixin' to." It's just so handy! "I'm about to" just doesn't flow the same way, sadly. Nor does fixin' work if you put the "g" back in.

I have been permanently converted to saying "soda" rather than "coke" for all soft drinks though.
posted by emjaybee at 2:49 PM on July 10, 2005

KJS, I had a smilar experience in downtown Manhattan when I walked past a place called "the Tibetan Store" I sawa guy in "traditional" garb walk outside and when he caught my eye, he said in fluent Brooklynese "how you doin'?" I had a Chinese-American freind named Odelia in college, but she had grown up in Bay Ridge so she talked like an extra from saturday Night Fever and sprayed her hair as high as an any Brooklyn guidette. Why? Because that's who she was, despite anybody's suppositions.
posted by jonmc at 2:50 PM on July 10, 2005

> English seriously needs a second person plural
> pronoun and "y'all" is the best choice.

I'll be sticking with yiz, I'm afraid. As in:

"Yiz are all fullacrap."

(A Liverpudlian contraction of the Irish 'youse', presumably'.)

As to why 'y'all' is growing in popularity, it can only be due to forty years of Beverly Hillbillies re-runs.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:52 PM on July 10, 2005

But not near so much I resent those crotchwaffles that would fain standardize mine utterance - arount thee!

See, with all your talk about combusticating new flavors of linguististification you've successfully immunized yourself against my pointing out that it should be "aroint thee"; you'll just say "I was having fun with the language!" Hmph.
posted by languagehat at 2:53 PM on July 10, 2005

Well, now that we're on to random language hijinks, I still laugh about the time I was in a Star Market in Boston and a Japanese guy who spoke no English came in with some illegible directions on a scrap of paper seeking help. The security guy took him over to a Chinese guy standing in line and said, here, you help him. The Chinese guy explained that they spoke different languages, but the security guy wasn't having it. "Go ahead, just try. Say something to him, see if it works. I bet it will"
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:53 PM on July 10, 2005

I don't know why anyone thinks we need a plural you. You is already plural, much like the french "vous". What we need is a singular. :)

I've never used y'all and I've never actually felt a need for it either. I mean, if someone says My friends and I are going out, why would I need to acknowledge the plural? Why would it seem wrong to just say, Oh yeah? Where are you going? I know it's plural. The other person clearly knows it's plural. Why do I need to underscore it?

But there aren't many y'all users in Ontario, in my experience.
posted by Hildegarde at 2:56 PM on July 10, 2005

with regards to the asian-american with the bahstan accent, ms. kcm is from hong kong and was there until 14 or so. at some indeterminate point in her undergrad career, after spending all her years in the US in MI, she was pegged out of the blue in NRT for having a Michigan accent of all things.

so, not only is it possible to adopt a completely foreign accent - most of her HK friends have british accents, even after spending time here, although she does have her own cute speech rhythms, Michigan is easily picked out halfway around the globe. Dee-troy-it 4 LyF.
posted by kcm at 2:57 PM on July 10, 2005

languagehat: I was convinced by years of high school English that the use of "they" as a singular pronoun was improper, despite its frequent usage; is this not true, or is it one of those things that's so ubiquitous as to not be considered wrong anymore?
posted by invitapriore at 3:00 PM on July 10, 2005

there is at least a place in hell
for this and other doggerel.
posted by MrLint at 3:01 PM on July 10, 2005

On the ashamed of ethnic accents thread, I remember onetime calling my house from work, when my grandparents were visiting, and when I realized that my co-workers could overhear, I substituted "grandma" for "nonna."

One co-worker who was also Italian-American said "Did you say 'mommy, then grandma?'"

"No, I said 'nonna'"

"I say the same thing," he said with a smile.

Minor but I remember my Jewish college girlfreind having the same mixed emotions over clling her grandparents 'Bubbe' & 'Zadie." Now I feel nothing but pride about it.
posted by jonmc at 3:02 PM on July 10, 2005

I'm not from the South, but it's so damn useful that I use y'all all the damn time. Usually, it's in the form of "lookit, y'all," but it has other uses.

Reckon's a good word, except that it's two syllables instead of just one ("I reckon" vs. "I think").

There are many times where I drop words and syllables among my very well-educated and well-employed friends, and they do likewise. ("Where y'all going? Whatchu up to? Where ya goin'?") These friends tend to be in Boston, Chicago or New York. Y'all's just an example of that.

By the way, the use of "be" in place of many "be verbs" isn't just in the 'hood; it's a southern thing as well. The similarities in grammatical structure between street and south are fascinating.
posted by sachinag at 3:06 PM on July 10, 2005

So all y'all who go around deploring linguistic change should be saying "I axed him"; the knowledge that you're using the historic and therefore correct form should more than compensate you for snickers and raised eyebrows.

Snap!
posted by grouse at 3:07 PM on July 10, 2005

Languagehat, that was delicately done! And whenever these discussions happen on dialect and idiom, I'm always pleased, sensing the friendly, albeit looming, bulk of S. Johnson somewhere near. Instant chophouse warmth and wit.

But it is also interesting how quickly people's emotions are fully engaged in these issues; clearly what we learn early, acquire later, or disavow with prejudice remains capable of causing the quick flare of indignation — or ready identification.

Full admission: I'm a Southerner, currently residing in Georgia after having dwelt all over the US and Europe, and enjoy using y'all with relish. And a side of grits.
posted by Haruspex at 3:23 PM on July 10, 2005

kcm writes "with regards to the asian-american with the bahstan accent, ms. kcm is from hong kong and was there until 14 or so.

Is the writing in third person about yourself an affectation, or as a result of your linguistic upbringing?
posted by benzo8 at 3:30 PM on July 10, 2005

Alternatively, if I had read properly before posting - "ms</em kcm", I'd probably have realised you were talking about your partner and I'd feel less of a tool right now...

Who was that short-lived guy we had around a few months back who spoke of himself in the third person, anyhow?
posted by benzo8 at 3:32 PM on July 10, 2005

no problem. it's shorter than 'my girlfriend'. I tend to refer to myself in the 2nd person, anyway.. it gets confusing quickly.
posted by kcm at 3:46 PM on July 10, 2005

I'm completely fascinated by this discussion. Partly because I thought people had stopped arguing about which English pronounciation/form/dialect is the 'correct' one ages ago (well, the Brits at least), partly because I'm so crap at telling American accents as I'm not familiar enough with the differences there. I can just about tell a general Southern accent and an Italian American accent and Hispanic accents but other than that, y'all sound American to me. I also cannot tell non-French speaking Canadians from Americans. (Is it even possible?)
posted by funambulist at 4:04 PM on July 10, 2005

I'm a native Texan who relocated to California years ago. I worked hard to rid myself of the accent because people assume that talk slowly= think slowly. However, I absolutely refuse to abandon my y'all. In fact, it has spread rapidly amongst my racially and ethnically diverse circle of friends. Oh, I WILL convert the world one person at a time.
posted by kamikazegopher at 4:12 PM on July 10, 2005

funambulist wins.
posted by 3.2.3 at 4:22 PM on July 10, 2005

I'm going to defend nlindstrom.

I'm from Kansas, and in Kansas, if you hear someone say 'y'all' the chances are almost 100% that you are talking to someone who is:

a) minimally educated
b) as dumb as a fucking stump to begin with
c) a religious right-wing nut job

Sure, there are people in Kansas who say y'all but don't fit into any of the above categories. They are pretentious assholes who are using the word either to make a point in an argument like this one, or they are on some fantasy trip about getting back to their roots, and their use of y'all always comes off as affected.

"But bingo," you may say, "you're not in Kansas anymore."

True, I'm not (I'm in NYC). And I've also traveled pretty extensively. This argument makes me think of those ridiculous cowboy boots and belt buckles sold in the Time-Warner center (there is a whole shop dedicated to such things)...they may, in some postmodern way, seem cute or chic to some people who have not often had the misfortune of dealing with the sort of people who would habitually wear such things without a thought of irony.

As for the self-described Southern Gentlemen...that phrase itself makes me wince more than the use of "y'all." I can't hear it without thinking of cotton plantations and snide smiles...and setting aside the whole Southern thing, calling oneself a gentleman is a rather un-gentlemanly thing to do, and it comes off as affected, pretentious, and unduly conceited.

No doubt this comment will anger many people, and believe it or not, I'm not trying to bait anyone. But this is how I feel, and nlindstrom and I are not exactly alone in this, our representation in this thread to the contrary. When I hear y'all in a conversation, I immediately think to myself, Talking to this person is most likely a waste of my time. And the truth is that such people, by and large, would rather not spend time with a Johnson County kid like myself either. In this regard, the linguistic cues on both sides are working exactly as they should.
posted by bingo at 4:26 PM on July 10, 2005

When I hear y'all in a conversation, I immediately think to myself, Talking to this person is most likely a waste of my time.

bingo, you're a nice guy and all, but that statement reveals more about your own prejudices than about the people you're writing off.
posted by jonmc at 4:34 PM on July 10, 2005

I also cannot tell non-French speaking Canadians from Americans. (Is it even possible?)

I can't tell the Irish from the English. (Is it even possible?)

Argh, don't get us started.
posted by Hildegarde at 4:43 PM on July 10, 2005

jonmc: You're confusing your Dennises, man.

Sad but true, ever since my microstroke.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:04 PM on July 10, 2005

Don't be so quick to dismiss bingo -- he's on to something. Ya'll is not widely used in KS, and there are definitely people here who are guilty of self-consciously exaggerating their dialects or further countrifying their speech for dishonest reasons. It's a delicate thing. There are some folks where you can tell that the accent and slang are genuine; I'd put my grandma in that camp, and she's a far stretch from stupid. She doesn't say ya'll, because like I said, rural KS folks generally don't, but she certainly sounds country. Personally, I find her accent and regional slang charming and people who would think her dumb because of it are themselves dumb as stumpfuckers (to borrow an Ozark phrase I quite like).

But then there's a car salesman/local politician form, the "Hey bo, I'm jes a reglar guy" stuff, and I tend to reach for my wallet and my ass when I hear it. It's a variant on what troybob said earlier: the speaker is indicating "I talk country, and country people are more trustworthy than city types, so you should implicitly believe all the stuff I'm trying to sell you." I thnk that's part of what bingo's getting at. Well, I know better, and so should, ahem, ya'll.

Then there's another sort, stranger still: the nostalgia form, when people relocate to a different part of the country and suddenly exaggerate their accent and regional speech because they miss home, or like the uniqueness it marks them with. That's where bingo and I disagree a bit -- I don't think it's necessarily pretention. That is to say, it's not exactly dishonest, but it's not really who they are. It's a sort of psychic home defense system against homesickness and uprootedness.

It's all dependent on context. I don't automatically admire a country or ethnic accent as authentic. It's like anything else: it all depends on the intent of the speaker. If you tend to make a blanket set of assumptions everytime someone uses ya'll, you're probably not listening closely enough.
posted by melissa may at 5:06 PM on July 10, 2005

jonmc, sorry to predate you, and too long gone in this thread, but "reckon" predates you by about, jesus, 25 years when "chinny reckon" was used by countless UK kids when denying the probability of another kid's spurious story. Came with: the stroking of the chin, Jimmy Hill stylee.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 5:11 PM on July 10, 2005

I'm sure, dude, but I've always associated "reckon" with southern freinds who've used it, and it just sounds great so I'd like to see it revived.
posted by jonmc at 5:22 PM on July 10, 2005

I have a really hard time taking people that wear certain kinds of hat seriously. While not a sure-fire indicator of mental status they definitely raise a red flag. For as we all known, ones choice of clothes, vernacular, or bumper sticker can be as clearly communicative as body language.

Of course, one must be careful to determine whether the irony layer count (if one exists) is odd or even.
posted by 31d1 at 5:26 PM on July 10, 2005

even though it is too long gone in the thread, urbanwhaleshark brought it up, so I just want to say that I frequently use "reckon". Yes, it gets me odd looks from people who don't know me very well; people who do know me have come to realize that my active vocabulary runs the gamut from erudite to back-country illiterate, and so have come to accept hearing the word.

I also have been known to say "y'all". Once, in a linguistics class in England, the lecturer was commenting on the use of "y'all" and even the odd, remarkable pluralization of an already plural, "y'all all". As the token visiting American from a Southern university, I had to take issue with this spurious claim of his, on the grounds that I am about 98.7% positive that no such form "y'all all" exists, and in fact what he meant was "all y'all", which flows mellifluously from the tongue (and which I have also been known to say on occasion). To my irritation he doggedgly stuck with his "y'all all" crap, no doubt to the detriment of countless undergrads.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 5:35 PM on July 10, 2005

For as we all known, ones choice of clothes, vernacular, or bumper sticker can be as clearly communicative as body language.

That's a little too close toa bigot's self-justification. After all those black kids choose to wear those baggy pants and skullcaps and that's why it's not racist if lady's clutch their purses when they're near them.

Yes, clothes and speech are indicators of social class and regional origin. Is that an excuse to judge someones mental ability or moral fiber?

No. Nice try, though.
posted by jonmc at 5:36 PM on July 10, 2005

Here in western NC, you'ins (pronounced yuns) is a more countrified y'all. I've even heard y'allsins.
posted by moonbird at 5:44 PM on July 10, 2005

languagehat: I was convinced by years of high school English that the use of "they" as a singular pronoun was improper, despite its frequent usage; is this not true, or is it one of those things that's so ubiquitous as to not be considered wrong anymore?

It depends what you mean by "true." It was always perfectly good English, if by that you mean (as linguists do) what native speakers naturally say, but it has been considered "improper" or "wrong" because, you know, "they is plural." This is an objection similar to the one that claims "I don't see nothing" can't be good English because "a double negative is a positive." These are idiotic ideas, but you can't blame the people who spout them, because hardly anyone is taught the first thing about language from a scientific point of view. As I said above, I expect singular they to be accepted in a few decades, but at present I imagine high school English teachers are still telling their students it's "improper."

But this is how I feel, and nlindstrom and I are not exactly alone in this, our representation in this thread to the contrary.

Why no, you're not, any more than George Bush is alone in his assumption that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. Hardly any belief is so offensive, illogical, or just plain wrong that there aren't hordes of people who share it. Congratulations, nlindstrom! You'll never walk alone!

If you tend to make a blanket set of assumptions everytime someone uses ya'll, you're probably not listening closely enough.

Right. So why are you not dismissing bingo, again?
posted by languagehat at 5:47 PM on July 10, 2005

it's amazing to me that such a little word could be so controversial

When I hear y'all in a conversation,

you reach for your gun? diploma? monocle?
posted by pyramid termite at 5:50 PM on July 10, 2005

I don't know that I can describe it but some southern women use y'all as a singular in a coquettish way - "But y'all are so big and strong..."
posted by Carbolic at 5:52 PM on July 10, 2005

Today on MeFi's front page we have Karl Rove, London terror attacks, and MSG. And the post with the most comments is this one. Amazing.
posted by grouse at 5:54 PM on July 10, 2005