Y'All Be Wary

[Highlander]

I just read an article which asserted that "y'all" has spread beyond its Southern benighted roots and is now commonplace in the US. Lots of linguistic stuff and grammatical explication.

What alerted me was the assertion that y'all has now become a marker for the hip young, for the LGBTQ, for those who want to be accepted by Southerners, the working class, rural communities, and so on. It occurs to me that this phenomenon -- the cultural Left co-opting a marker of the cultural Right -- is commonplace. It appears a mechanism where those who have not practiced traditional, flyover country, centrally demographic values can cloak themselves with practices that are essentially camouflage.

I have noted that beards expanded from the faces of working class Americans to the gay community to the intelligentsia to social trend setters. I have noted how certain clothing styles have likewise spread. Pickup trucks are a prime example.

So, for what it is worth, I'm gonna do a sanity check whenever I hear a "y'all". To evaluate whether it is natural or an affectation.

[anawim]

I can assure you, as an 11th. generation NY'er, I will not be using that expression.

However, I have developed a love for biscuits and gravy.

...And having a pickup truck has become a matter of practicality.

[Doom]

I have never heard anyone saying "y'all" even when I lived in the south and I think the claim that it is becoming mainsteam and even hip is poppycock,

[Riverboat]

I have never heard anyone saying "y'all" even when I lived in the south and I think the claim that it is becoming mainsteam and even hip is poppycock,

I don't really care, as long as they put the apostrophe where it belongs - between the y and all.

[Riverboat]

...And having a pickup truck has become a matter of practicality.

If that Commie gets elected mayor, I expect pickup trucks will be in huge demand to move anywhere else.

[anawim]

...And having a pickup truck has become a matter of practicality.

If that Commie gets elected mayor, I expect pickup trucks will be in huge demand to move anywhere else.

At this point I'm hoping a third party candidate will split the Democratic vote, and a Republican will get elected.

Since I'm in the northern suburbs, NYC doesn't usually affect me. However there can be a domino effect.

[Doom]

At this point I'm hoping a third party candidate will split the Democratic vote, and a Republican will get elected.

Not a realistic scenario. The only possible way to beat him is for all third-party candidates, and Republican Curtis Silwa, to drop out and endorse Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo is corrupt, a liar, and a creep, but at least he is not an antisemitic Islamist communist.

[Highlander]

I hope he runs .. and wins. Because, no matter the twists and turns, no Republican has a chance in solidly blue NYC. And then NYC will get what it deserves. Too bad he didn't declare in Chicago or LA, who deserve it even more.

[Tired]

I hear y'all a lot where I live. Along with 'you guys'. I don't choose to use it except in specific circumstances. I wouldn't attach anything to it at all except good old southern 'laidbackness'.

[Signum Crucis]

I live in south central Georgia. We say y'all all the time. ALL the time, y'all. Everybody I know says y'all. It's part of our culture and heritage.

"Y'all fixin' ta go ta tha store?"
"Y'all young'uns better behave, or y'all ain't gonna like me very much."

Y'all is a versatile word. When it gets too noisy at family gatherings, I yell out, "Y'all!" Even my dogs stop barking, because they're y'all, too.

Unfortunately, some southern people don't know how to say y'all, and it's like fingernails on a chalk board. "Yaw." Yaw? Who in tarnation taught y'all to say "yaw"? It's the same people who leave off the "l" sound in words. I used to live in a town named Vidalia. Vi-dale-yuh. Those yaw people pronounce it Vi-day-yuh. Words ending in -lia get the -yuh treatment. Luckily, I don't know many yaw people. They aren't in my social circle.

The world is better with y'all in it.

[Highlander]

Y'all are right.

Which opens up the can of worms as to whether y'all is second person plural ... and ... second person singular.

[Riverboat]

y'all = you all

Clearly second person plural, although the person speaking may soften a command or statement by using this instead of the more direct you .

[anawim]

Y'all are right.

Which opens up the can of worms as to whether y'all is second person plural ... and ... second person singular.

I had always been told that plural would be "all y'all". Not being from the south, I can't verify that.

[Highlander]

Now you're getting into some rarified liguistical phenomena.

"All y'all" is indeed the plural. The plural plural? In particular, it is used for emphasis -- "All y'all kids better clean up that mess you made to the back yard." It can also mean "with no excpetions". "All y'all are gonna turn in your homework right now!"

It seems, in my recollection, that "y'all" can be singular. Like If I really don't know someone _ "Y'all decide what kinda bait you gonna buy?" Or I'm being critical -- "Y'all are a mess." I probably wouldn't use y'all to address a specific person if others were present or it wasn't clear that I was addressing a specific person.

As stated, it is incredible versatile.