y'all redux

[Wilson Gray]

Well, I was thinking that y'all could listen to them and make up y'all
own minds, since y'all know where I stand on this issue. I think that
Phillip McGraw now lives in Dallas, but I don't know whether he grew up
there or just moved there after becoming Dr. Phil. Also, I'm merely
offering Phil and Katie as random examples of native "y'all/you-all"
speakers. I'm not suggesting that either of them will necessarily
provide any evidence in support of my point of view.

-Wilson

On Feb 25, 2005, at 12:48 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIOU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: y'all redux
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> Do Dr. Phil and Katie Couric use y'all/you all in the pl. or sing. or
> both?  OK and (west?) TX, and WV (but probably not VA) might represent
> "fuzzy boundary" usage of sing. y'all (and even you all?)--in either
> the
> geographical sense I mentioned earlier or the politeness sense
> suggested by
> Jim.
>
> At 01:22 AM 2/25/2005, you wrote:
>> Inny y'all ever watch Dr. Phil? He's a fine example of a Southwestern
>> speaker. He's from Vinita, OK (not to be cofused with Vinita, MO),
>> originally, but he's lived in Texas for quite a while and uses a lot
>> of
>> "y'all." He even uses "hit" for "it"! And there's also Katie Couric. I
>> can't say that I've ever heard her use y'all, but she uses "you-all"
>> with a fairly high degree of regularity. She's a native of (West?)
>> Virginia, I believe.
>>
>> -Wilson
>>
>>
>> On Feb 25, 2005, at 12:22 AM, James C Stalker wrote:
>>
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>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       James C Stalker <stalker at MSU.EDU>
>>> Subject:      Re: y'all redux
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> --
>>> --------
>>>
>>> I stand corrected.  In thinking about the data problem, Mike
>>> Montgomery's
>>> article in Am Speech on multiple modals comes to mind.  He has a
>>> relatively
>>> limited range of data, all painstakingly collected from reported data
>>> over
>>> quite a span of time, but the data make a convincing case for mms
>>> being
>>> polite forms. Following on from there, mm speakers will also be
>>> non--mm
>>> speakers, when the politeness needs are not relevant.  Sg/pl yall, if
>>> sg is
>>> polite, would follow the same pattern, making the collection of data
>>> more
>>> complex.  No one would ever be a consistent sg or pl yall person.
>>> They
>>> would always be both, but in different contexts.  Could this be a
>>> Northern/Southern shiboleth?
>>>
>>> Jim Stalker
>>>
>>> James C. Stalker
>>> Department of English
>>> Michigan State University
>