"Y'all" in Friday's New York Times

[Beverly Flanigan]

This is a good, if oversimplified, discussion of Texan speech.  I wouldn't
expect a "scientific" explication of the dialect in the Times, or any other
popular medium for that matter.  The important point is that Bailey and
Tillery were interviewed, and their methodology was nicely
explained.  Contrast this with the truly horrible interview on NPR this
morning, where Scott Simon made an utter fool of himself in about two
minutes' time.  The "twang" (the Times' term too, alas), "y'all," and
"fixin' to" were faked and mocked, really pathetically, and it was clear he
didn't know what Guy Bailey was talking about when he said "'you' was
originally plural, you know" (or words to that effect).  Guy sounded truly
embarrassed by Simon's typically patronizing tone.  (This is the same
commentator who frequently hypercorrects 'who' to 'whom' and drops
prepositions because he's apparently terrified of ending a sentence with one.)

At 08:53 PM 11/28/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>absolutely delightful ! Thank you so much for pointing us to this article
>Barry !!
>
>I forwarded the link to the article to all my friends in Texas
>
>cheers from rainy Vancouver BC,
>
>Vida.
>vidamorkunas at telus.net
>
>