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<TITLE>Re: you all's</TITLE>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Beverly Flanigan wrote:</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> A third form offered by a student of</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">mine is "you allses'," a possessive referring to a non-homogeneous group</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">(according to her), as in "Write down you allses' phone numbers" (I'm</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">supplying an apostrophe out of writing convention only, of</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">course). Incidentally, she says she would say "your all's" and "your</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">allses'," but this seems to strangely mix standard and regional, doesn't</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">it?</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I have to agree with the student who would say "your all's" and "your allses.'" I don't know whether I would actually say either one although it's possible I do without being aware of it, but I know I've heard these forms in Mississippi and my ear tells me she's right. "You all's" without the "r" sounds dissonant, incomplete, wrong, makes my skin crawl. Using the possessive form of the pronoun puts it in agreement with the possessive form of "all." I don't think it's a mix of standard and regional since the same speakers use "your" when speaking to one person. This is simply an instance of redundancy at work.</FONT></P>
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