Grammar peeve: "yous guys" vs. "y'all"

[ZenLefty]

Which sentence is more grammatically correct?

"Hey, yous guys should check out that new Chinese restaurant."

"Hey, y'all should check out that new Chinese restaurant."

Personally, I think there is not so much as a modicum of leeway here, and the correct answer should be obvious to yous guys.

[Rowdyboy]

1. Why do y'all wanna know?

[ZenLefty]

4. Cause I tink yous guys should speak more grammatically.

:P

[carolinayellowdog]

2. Yous is not a word

so I chose other, because it's not a matter of grammar

[ZenLefty]

7. Yous is da plural of you

If dere was just dis one guy, I would sayd "you guy", which is funny, cause that's the name of the chef down at my favorite Thai food place, Yu Gai. Do yous guys know Yu Gai?

[mrfrapp]

23. "You" is the plural

"You" is plural already so "you guys" is correct. Strictly speaking, the singular is "thou", as in "will thou go and get me some Thai food".

[Squeegee]

52. Eep, conjugation!

You also need to conjugate the helper verb to agree with the 2nd person singular pronoun; it should be "Wilt thou go and get me some Thai food".

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

3. "ax" instead of "ask"

I don't get why that's so hard to pronounce.

[Squeegee]

53. Age old problem

This isn't something new. Historically, records as far back as from the 7th century A.D. show that the word "ask" has been pronounced both ways.

[TX-RAT]

5. Y'all gotta be kidding.

[GOPisEvil]

6. Good for you! You spelled "y'all" correctly!

"ya'll" is just wrong!!! The apostrophe takes the place of the letter that aren't there. So, "y'all" is correct.

</spelling lesson>

[TX-RAT]

8. Thank you for pointing that out .

[ZenLefty]

11. ya'll?

I thought that was a contraction of "Yak Mall" :shrug:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

14. OK but when I first started posting on DU

all the REAL southerners told me they wouldn't talk to me unless I spelled it that way

[VelmaD]

16. Honey, they were playing with you...

like the internet equivalent of cow-tipping or snipe-hunting. :)

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

20. I thought it was the abbreviation for GOP's tatoo in that special place

Yaks are so much fun they like to go to the mall




you know...when it's not hard :evilgrin:

[VelmaD]

21. It's even more impressive when you find out...

it's printed in Times New Roman 36 pt font. :)

[GOPisEvil]

35. It's "Y'ALL", dammit!

Sounds like a good tattoo to me. :D

[freetobegay]

9. Depends on what part of the Country y'all are from.

[EdGy]

10. you guys

is the proper term I believe.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

12. It's ALL Ya'll

stooopid! :evilgrin:

[GOPisEvil]

13. Y'all is singluar. All y'all is plural.

:evilgrin:

[VelmaD]

17. Actually y'all can be...

singular or plural. All y'all is for big groups. If you walk into a room full of people it's grammatically (and socially) correct to say "Hey y'all". :)

[carolinayellowdog]

22. Y'all is NEVER singular

Where did you get that? I've lived in VA, NC, LA, and AL, am 50 years old and have never once heard anyone use it as a singular. Except Yankees making fun of Southerners!

[VelmaD]

24. I've heard it a few times...

but not very often it's true. Usually by Southerners putting it on thick for fun. :)

[GOPisEvil]

25. I'm just being a smartass!

:D

[RoyGBiv]

36. Y'all can definitely be singular...

I hear it around here all the time.

[Bake]

57. WRONG! "Y'all" is ALWAYS plural

It just depends on HOW plural it is. If there's a big bunch of people, "all y'all" is acceptable. What really pisses me off, as a Southerner, is when a Yankee says to me, with NO ONE ELSE AROUND, "Where y'all going for lunch?" (i.e., uses the plural as a singular).

Plus, Yankees CANNOT, for the life of them, pronounce it correctly. Not ever. Not in the North, not in Hollyweird. They shouldn't try. Not ever.

Bake

[Whitacre D_WI]

15. "Yunz."

Just ask the Pittsburghers.

[Beware the Beast Man]

33. lol

check out my new poll...

[tigereye]

47. or yinz

you stole my line! ( well not really since I don't really say it, I just like to say it here. Silly I know. )

[VelmaD]

18. While I'm a Southerner and use y'all all the time...

I'd vote for whatever is the appropriate slang for whatever region you were born in. One of the things that makes life interesting is these little differences. :)

[Burma Jones]

19. In my freshman year of College...

I was taking Latin 101 and used y'all as the third person plural in some translations. I was immediately tagged as a crass redneck.

One of my classmates used yous guys and was spared any repurcussions.

That's what happens when you go to college in Illinois but hail from Maryland

[Solly Mack]

26. and then there is yu'ins...from the very north Georgian mtns

I have no clue as to what it's derived from..I do know it means y'all.

A heck of a lot of old scottish and irish "english" is spoken in this part of the Georgia mtns....maybe it's derived from that.

There was a study done once of the region and the people who live there.. and the closeness still to the languages spoken by their ancestors in Scotland and Ireland of old.

[carolinayellowdog]

34. Appalachian generally

It's already established that "you uns"/"yunz" is used in PA and GA. I've heard it from Western NC and WV as well.

[bhunt70]

27. I picked y'all but what about you'uns (sp) ...my relative in PA say this.

[JM]

45. Yinz, as in "yinz goin' dahn ta sahside for a jumbo sammich?"

The translation..."Are you going down to the South Side for a bologna sandwich?"

For even more effect, through "Annat" on the end.

True Pittsburghese at it's finest...

Later,
JM

[johnnie]

28. You guys..

Although I have caught myself using the y'all thing these days. The internet has brought many a cultures together I guess.
Growing up in Cleveland, "you guys" was just the way it was said. If we did say y'all it was because we were doing Hee Haw skits..lol. Now I realize that 98% of the country uses y'all.
Having grandparents that moved from the old country to Penn., Yunz or however you want to spell it, was also normal in my family. Though not said much among my friends.

[ScreamingMeemie]

29. Youums.

;)

[kmla]

30. Yous guys. You gotta problem wid dat?

But the guy in the next cube says ALL Y'ALL are crazy as batpoop...

[DS1]

31. You guys

who the fuck says yous?

[smirkymonkey]

46. It's a New York borough type of thing

...Youse, in the vernacular.

[pagerbear]

32. "Y'all should check out that new Chinese restaurant" is incongruous

The only people in the South who go to Chinese restaurants are damn carpet-baggers!

Oh, and please, please, please! NEVER use y'all for only one person!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

37. Linguist's view

Most European languages have a singular and a plural "you." So did English--at one time.

In the old days, "thou" was used to refer to one person and "you" to refer to more than one person. That usage can be seen in Shakespeare or the King James Bible. In addition, "you" was used to show respect, so that ordinary people were addressed as "thou," but kings and other people who demanded obedience were addressed as "you."

Some time in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, what we might call "pronoun inflation" occurred.

The range of people who demanded to addressed as "you" grew so much that pretty soon there was hardly anyone who could safely be addressed as "thou." The result was that "thou" died out, except in a few rural dialects in England.

So here we are in modern English with only one official second-person pronoun: "you." The trouble is that we sometimes feel the need to make it clear that we are addressing more than one person. Each region of the United States has come up with its own informal solution to the need: "y'all" in the South, "youse" in the Northeast, and "you guys" in most of the rest of the country.

[ZenLefty]

40. So, logically...

Thou --> Thous guys --> Those guys

Wow. Amazing to see the evolution of language right before your eyes. :D

[TheMightyFavog]

44. Yeah....

I remember being taught to think of the ihr form in German as the German Equivalent to Wisconsin/UP's "Youse Guys"

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[GOPisEvil]

39. Y'all support DU now, ya hear?

:D

[ZenLefty]

41. I hear ya'll.

:o

[GOPisEvil]

42. Must you mock me?

:P

[ZenLefty]

43. Today is "Give GOPisEvil Shit" day

It's part of your initiation for becoming a homeowner. We have several days scheduled like this. :+

[foxy]

48. Yawl has been my spelling for a couple yrs now

Use to be ya'll

[Endangered Specie]

49. What about Y'alls

[ZenLefty]

51. Makes me think of boats

for some reason. :shrug:

[mad_russian]

50. YUENZ...is what people say where i'm from...nt

[icymist]

54. Y'all yous guys are taking this way too seriously!

y'all yous guys!

[ZenLefty]

55. I'm just glad that...

...a copycat thread made it to 55 posts!! :o

[minkyboodle]

56. sometimes I say y'all

(In John Lovitz voice) "Is that soo wroooooong?"

[newyawker99]

58. Well...........

Here in da big apple we spell it "youse" as in youse guys
crack me up." So dis is the way we says it. :silly: