4 ms·

> I still say "y'all" but I say it with no Texan drawl, which sounds a bit odd to people, I think. We say it in Western Massachusetts, but it's clipped, more l

> I still say "y'all" but I say it with no Texan drawl, which sounds a bit odd to people, I think. We say it in Western Massachusetts, but it's clipped, more like "Can I help yal?"

kibwen 4y ago
Calling it now, in ten years "y'all" will be a standard fixture of every American English dialect and nobody born after 2020 will bat an eye at it. It's just a great word, distinct in semantic utility and satisfying to enunciate. Even as a Pittsburgher with a license to "yinz" I still say "y'all".
- davidgh 4y ago
  Agree. “Ya’ll” is linguistically necessary in English since the word “ye” was deprecated. A common alternative to remove ambiguity between singular and plural “you” in some parts of the US is “you guys”.
  - wrycoder 4y ago
    Then, there’s all y’all.
  - rendall 4y ago
    English has "thou", which was the singular second person pronoun, and "you" which was the plural second person pronoun, but also used as a more formal, polite singular second person pronoun. Through a kind of formality inflation, everyone started using "you" all the time and abandoned "thou". Contemporary standard English doesn't have a plural second person pronoun, but needs one, and so "y'all" (or "ya'll") is being used now in some regions.
  - gnubison 4y ago
    “Ye” is just the nominative case (like “I” vs. “me” being accusative), it has nothing to do with number. Thou/thee is the one with number.
    - davidgh 4y ago
      You have it exactly backwards. Thou is singular and informal, ye is plural and / or singular formal. Ye is a second-person, plural, personal pronoun (nominative), spelled in Old English as "ge". [0] The word thou is a second-person singular pronoun in English. It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in most contexts by the word you. [1] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_(pronoun) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_(pronoun) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou
      - gnubison 4y ago
        Not sure how my comment is “exactly backwards” — it’s logically consistent with your (new) comment. My point was that, relative to you, ye makes a case distinction (nominative), and that relative to you, thou makes a number distinction (glossing over formal/informal). We deprecated ye and thou, but it’s the latter that “requires” y’all, because only thou (relative to us still having you) distinguishes the number of people. Edit: put another way, “thou/thee is the one with number” meant that reintroducing them would create a number distinction.
- rbt5009 4y ago
  Also a Pittsburgher and I find y'all and you guys to be much more natural and widely applicable than yinz.

> I still say "y'all" but I say it with no Texan drawl, which sounds a bit odd to people, I think. We say it in Western Massachusetts, but it's clipped, more like "Can I help yal?"

kibwen 4y ago

Calling it now, in ten years "y'all" will be a standard fixture of every American English dialect and nobody born after 2020 will bat an eye at it. It's just a great word, distinct in semantic utility and satisfying to enunciate. Even as a Pittsburgher with a license to "yinz" I still say "y'all".

davidgh 4y ago
Agree. “Ya’ll” is linguistically necessary in English since the word “ye” was deprecated. A common alternative to remove ambiguity between singular and plural “you” in some parts of the US is “you guys”.
- wrycoder 4y ago
  Then, there’s all y’all.
- rendall 4y ago
  English has "thou", which was the singular second person pronoun, and "you" which was the plural second person pronoun, but also used as a more formal, polite singular second person pronoun. Through a kind of formality inflation, everyone started using "you" all the time and abandoned "thou". Contemporary standard English doesn't have a plural second person pronoun, but needs one, and so "y'all" (or "ya'll") is being used now in some regions.
- gnubison 4y ago
  “Ye” is just the nominative case (like “I” vs. “me” being accusative), it has nothing to do with number. Thou/thee is the one with number.
  - davidgh 4y ago
    You have it exactly backwards. Thou is singular and informal, ye is plural and / or singular formal. Ye is a second-person, plural, personal pronoun (nominative), spelled in Old English as "ge". [0] The word thou is a second-person singular pronoun in English. It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in most contexts by the word you. [1] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_(pronoun) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_(pronoun) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou
    - gnubison 4y ago
      Not sure how my comment is “exactly backwards” — it’s logically consistent with your (new) comment. My point was that, relative to you, ye makes a case distinction (nominative), and that relative to you, thou makes a number distinction (glossing over formal/informal). We deprecated ye and thou, but it’s the latter that “requires” y’all, because only thou (relative to us still having you) distinguishes the number of people. Edit: put another way, “thou/thee is the one with number” meant that reintroducing them would create a number distinction.
rbt5009 4y ago
Also a Pittsburgher and I find y'all and you guys to be much more natural and widely applicable than yinz.