MacNeil-Lehrer News Hr

[Peter A. McGraw]

My mother, who grew up in Houston and then Oklahoma City, always addressed
my sister and me collectively as "you all," though we grew up in California
and Oregon, and her speech had few other traces of Texas or Oklahoma in it.
I don't remember her using it in any other context, though I'm sure she
grew up with either you all or y'all as the normal 2nd person plural.  I
always assumed she was consciously adopting an original y'all for this
particular context because she found it handy and "translating" it to you
all in an adaptation to the northern milieu in which we lived.  I THINK I
even remember her saying as much one time, but unfortunately I don't
remember whether she cited the original form she was borrowing from.

I wonder if Jim Lehrer might be doing something similar--taking an original
y'all and modifying it to you all as a concession to his national audience.

Peter Mc.

--On Monday, January 26, 2004 10:37 AM -0500 Beverly Flanigan
<flanigan at OHIO.EDU> wrote:

> Whether he's Texan or Oklahoman, his use of "you all" rather than "yall"
> is interesting (I agree with Matt Gordon that he never says "yall").  Does
> Southern "yall" become "you all" west of the Mississippi?  I believe
> Bethany has the full form too, right?  And Dan Rather does too, I think
> (from Houston, as I recall).  Maybe we've drawn these divisions
> before.  The same thing happens north of the Ohio, as in SE Ohio, where
> just yesterday I heard a local announcer address the listening audience as
> "you all."
>
> At 06:51 AM 1/26/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>> I though Lehrer was an Oklahoman; perhaps transplanted?
>>
>> dInIs
>>
>>> McNeil hasn't been on the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour for 10 or more years.
>>> It has been the Lehrer News Hour for at least that long. The speaker
>>> was indeed Lehrer; not a Canadian, but rather a North Carolinian.
>>> Jim Stalker
>>>
>>>
>>> David Bergdahl <einstein at FROGNET.NET> said:
>>>
>>>>  It was MacNeil (Of McN-L) that was a Canadian Scot.



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