Comment by huijzer
13 hours ago
Also sad is the fact that “you” is now used for “thee” and “thou” and such. The older variants could distinguish between “you” plural and “you” singular
13 hours ago
Also sad is the fact that “you” is now used for “thee” and “thou” and such. The older variants could distinguish between “you” plural and “you” singular
Australia has "yous" which I think is a useful and sensible innovation!
That's not an Australia specific address + England, Scotland, Ireland, US (parts), Canada (parts), NZ, South Africa
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yous
W'all have got y'all for plural you.
Before I moved to the South I (a non-Southerner) did not feel comfortable saying "y'all". But "you guys" seemed sexist. I have since spent a decade in the South and I have not picked up much of the dialect, but I definitely say "y'all" now.
"W'all" would be nice to have. I guess it's not a thing because it sounds too much like the things that separate rooms.
"Guys" (without a "the" in front of it) is uncontroversially gender-neutral in most contexts in at least some parts of the US. I'm not sure whether folks worried about it are from places where it's definitely not, or places where it's not used much at all so they're not aware that it's a non-issue in (at least many) places where it is.
I do prefer "y'all", though. I think it's the best one we've got, of the options ("yous" being another big one, and ew, gross)
I also love the nuance of "y'all" and "all y'all".
Have you yet progressed to y'all being singular and all y'all being plural?
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i tried to stop using y'all when i got my first job at MSFT, having grown up in the South; then 10 years later I realized it's perfect for Corporate America given it's gender neutral
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You, y'all (small close group), y'all all (larger, further group), and "all y'all" — Southeast Texas (coastal) dialect form that showed up about 25 yrs ago. I suspect it might've been there all along, but only became acceptable at that point?
Another 100+ years, and this'll be some solid grammar.
Don’t forget you’uns or yinz!
I struggled with this when I was a school teacher. English lacks a good way to clarify you are addressing a group vs one person, which comes up a lot in a classroom. “Class, you…” is clunky, “You guys…” has obvious issues, and y’all or any other contraction is generally considered bad grammar. I generally went with y’all. Kids would laugh about it, but that seemed to help get their attention.
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That has to be more than 25 years
I grew up in Houston saying all that in the 80s
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Forms of it persists in regional dialects, its not super common anymore but in Yorkshire I still here "dees" and "thas", "yous" also persist as another form of the plural you.