Singular y'all?

[Jonathan Lighter]

I too have heard pl. poss. "your-all's," but not more than a very few times. The speakers *seemed* to be Southerners.  Wish I could remember more.  (Goes for generally, too).

JL

Rachel Shuttlesworth <rshuttle at BAMA.UA.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Rachel Shuttlesworth
Subject: Re: Singular y'all?
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I agree with you, Jason (and BTW, hey, man, how's it going at APR? Long
time, no see.).

I think that in some professions, particularly those where groups of two
or more persons are commonly addressed, a Southerner (at least an
Alabamian) can inadvertently say "y'all" to one person; I had to
self-correct y'all to you more than once when working as a hostess in a
restaurant in Tuscaloosa. I also know that "y'all" CAN be said to one
person, but referring to more than one, at least around here (as in Ron
Butter's 2001 article in AmSp). Please note that I am not EVEN trying to
refute any of the singular "y'all" cases found in Texas or Oklahoma.
Bailey and Tillery have done work on this, right (1998, also in AmSp)?
I've also been told by a native Oklahoman (sorry, no more details than
that) that he has heard and used "y'all" as singular. I responded with,
"As in, 'I love y'all's shirt'?" He said, "Yep."

On the possessive form, I say "y'all's," but the one that took the cake
in my book was "your all's" from a resident of Florida, native of New
Jersey, who is a y'all user.

Rachel

Jason Norris wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jason Norris
> Subject: Re: Singular y'all?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I grew up in the South. Y'all is definitely plural.
>
> That's not to say you won't hear it used in a singular way, but perhaps that is due to a slight mental lapse rather than dialect variation.
>
> In the example mentioned below, the tired server at Waffle House may have said, "Y'all" all day long. When she served the person sitting alone at the table, it could have simply been a slip. It has happened to me before -- just like that (not at Waffle House, though).
>
> If y'all (or yall, as some spell it) is ever used consistently in a singular fashion, I've never heard it. Or it could be that's just how we talk in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
>
> Roll Tide, Y'all.
>
> Jason
>
>
>
> Alice Faber wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Alice Faber
> Organization: Haskins Laboratories
> Subject: Singular y'all?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>>From a blog I regularly read, by a native Torontonian
> .
> Note the first paragraph:
>
> "Welcome back y'all. (Or is that "y'alls" I can never figure that
> out. I was in a "Waffle House" in Tennessee once and the lady who poured
> my coffee said "Y'all want cream in that?" which confused me, since I
> was alone. Clearly, "Y'all" must be the singular, which perplexingly
> must mean that "y'alls" is the plural...right? Maybe this is something
> else Laurie can tell us, since she's an English professor.)"
>
> --
> Alice Faber
> Haskins Labs
>
>
> If we knew what we were doing,
> it wouldn't be called research,
> would it?
>
> -- Albert Einstein

--
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Dr. Rachel E. Shuttlesworth
CLIR Post-Doctoral Fellow
University of Alabama Libraries
Box 870266, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0266
Office: 205.348.4655/ Fax:205.348.8833
rachel.e.shuttlesworth at ua.edu


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