19th-century "y'all" again

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Dec. 30, Barry Popik alerted us to his new page on "y'all", which
he has dated back to 1856-7, in Alfred W. Arrington's novel _The
Rangers and Regulators of the Tanaha, or Life Among the Lawless: A
Tale of the Republic of Texas_.

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/yall/

Languagehat <http://www.languagehat.com/archives/002652.php> has
linked to a Dec. 25 post on David Parker's "Another History Blog",
which trumpets an 1858 cite from "Mozis Addums" aka George William
Bagby (Barry mentioned later cites by Bagby):

http://anotherhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/more-than-yall-wanted-to-now-about-yall.html

I posted comments on both blogs about Barry's antedating.


--Ben Zimmer

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org