youse as singular

[Jonathan Lighter]

I've seen singular {yiz} (not sure about {youse}) in places other than
_Maggie_. I associate it with working-class urban Irish English.

FWIW.

JL

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 8:17 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: youse as singular
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It's not obvious to me that "yehs"/"yous(e)" would necessarily be constrained in the same way as "y'all".
>
> LH
>
> On Feb 20, 2012, at 6:46 PM, Ron Butters wrote:
>
>> Isn't that Alan Slotkin?
>>
>> The evidence that "yall" is used as a singular is slim at best. I only vaguely remember Slotkin's article. Could you post the reference, please? Usually, the citations that are given in support of putative singular use are in fact anbiguous.
>>
>> Sent from my Droid Charge on Verizon 4GLTE
>>
>> ------Original Message------
>> From: Michael Newman <michael.newman at QC.CUNY.EDU>
>> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Date: Monday, February 20, 2012 11:18:11 PM GMT+0100
>> Subject: [ADS-L] youse as singular
>>
>> I sent this query out earlier but no one seems to have bitten. In case that was because I included it as an afterthought to another topic, and not lack of interest, I'd like to try again. A literary scholar  called Allen Slotkin claims that Stephen Crane was very adept at representing dialect. HIs particular point is on this 1893 novel of Crane's called Maggie, Girl of the Streets, in which the characters use you, yeh (obviously a reduction of you) and yehs, pretty much in what would be classic sociolinguistic variation if it were real. This means that yehs gets used sometimes as a singular. I doubt that this is in fact an accurate description of 1893 NYCE, although I'm aware of y'all getting used as a singular in places.
>>
>> Any one have any evidence one way or the other (admitting the difficulty of proven the non-existence of a form)?
>>
>>
>> Michael Newman
>> Associate Professor of Linguistics
>> Queens College/CUNY
>> michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu
>>
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