Southern 2nd-person plural double genitive

[Peter A. McGraw]

"You guys" is alive and well in lots of places besides Greater New York.
In fact, just recently at a restaurant in Greater Portland (OR), I heard
what I thought was my first instance of "you guys" having made the
transition to a full equivalent of Southern "Y'all."  Until then, I had
thought of it as having that potential but not having quite made the leap,
since speakers who used it would usually revert to simple "you" in a longer
discourse.  But then I encountered this waitress who used it with absolute
consistency and with low stress more characteristic of pronouns than of a
pronoun+noun combination.  As she waited on my wife and me, I never once
heard a simple "you."  It was something like, "As soon as youguys are
ready, I'll take youguys' order."  "If youguys are finished, I'll take
youguys' plates.  Youguys want dessert?--O.k., I'll goheaden bring youguys'
check."

Peter Mc.

--On Wed, Oct 18, 2000 11:53 AM -0400 Alice Faber
<afaber at MAIL.WESLEYAN.EDU> wrote:

> Ray Ott said:
>> Why not.  Isn't "you guys" Valley Girl for y'all?
>>
>
> Only if the valley in question is in the New York Metropolitan Area.
>
> Alice
>
> --
> Alice Faber, Manager                                         (860)
> 685-2954 Infant Language Development Laboratory
> afaber at wesleyan.edu 400 Judd Hall--Wesleyan University
> or Middletown, CT 06459
> faber at haskins.yale.edu



****************************************************************************
                               Peter A. McGraw
                   Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
                            pmcgraw at linfield.edu