"youse guys" in the 1890s.

[Jonathan Lighter]

It isn't hard to find. The are simply among the earliest.

I believe I posted the first one in reply to a suggestion that "youse guys"
was a Hollywood fantasy.

JL
On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 5:50 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "youse guys" in the 1890s.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 10:07 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 1895 _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_ (Oct. 13) 20 [ProQuest]: Hi, there! head
> 'em
> > off, youse guys!
>
> Still common among working-class white speakers even in my day:
> 1940's-1962, together with "No, NP never!" instead of "No, NP didn't!"
> in denial of accusations.
>
> It's always annoyed me that, when it comes to the use of _youse_,
> everybody always attributes it only to stereotyped Brooklynese and
> always ignores its existence in St. Louisan. Stop dissing The Lou!
> WTF, youse?! ;-)
>
> BTW, my gratitude to you for finding it in print, Jon. :-)
>
> --
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> –Mark Twain
>
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