y'all

[Dennis R. Preston]

You-all (not y'all) is the definite construction preference from my
Louisville youth.

dInIs

My understanding, from recent discussion with some Kentuckians (for some
of the same reasons that brought me to this list), is that there are a
number of variations within the state for the "you" formation: "you'all"
is the standard in Louisville (as it is in much of Texas, or was when I
was growing up); "y'all" prevails in the rest of the state, with at
least one exception; (and thank you for this spelling; I had always
envisioned it "ya'll," and now I'll have to decide what to use!); and
"you'uns" (or, as Aubrey Gruber spells it in *Mountain-ese: Basic Grammar
for Appalachia*, "youens," which she (he?) declares to be plural).  I am
told that "you'uns" is also used in Ohio and Indiana, though not by all,
or everywhere.

Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg <eulenbrg at u.washington.edu>

On Wed, 6 Aug 2003, James A. Landau wrote:

>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>  Poster:       "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
>  Subject:      Re: y'all
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  My father, who lived in Louisville his entire life, except for Army service
>  from 1943-6, said "you-all" rather than "y'all" and used it only for the
>  plural.
>
>        - James A. Landau
>

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
      Asian & African Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
e-mail: preston at msu.edu
phone: (517) 353-9290