y'all redux

[Alice Faber]

Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> Then how explain the occasional Southerner who admits to occasional singularity?
>
> Most people, one assumes, don't often monitor their own speech for absolute semantic precision.  Whatever the observable facts of "singularity," the *average* Southern speaker, I believe, is far more likely to admit the possibility of occasional singularity than are sophisticated Southerners with an interest in language.
>
> Just another damyankee hypothesis.
>

The comments on that blog entry I pointed to yesterday were mostly about
"y'all", singular or plural. I think those posters would count as
literate, self-aware non-linguists. While some commenters were as
insistent as any ADS-Ler that singular "y'all" is an unattested
monstrosity, there were other reasonable-sounding reports of unambiguous
singular "y'all".

(For those who didn't follow the link, the blog is
<http://www.yarnharlot.ca>, and the comments would have been to
yesterday's entry.

--

Alice Faber