[Ads-l] Possessive plurals

Mon Jun 26 16:27:49 UTC 2023

I think that's simply making fun of a non-native speaker.

JL

On Mon, Jun 26, 2023 at 12:10 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <
adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:

> Here is an instance of “you guyses” in 1899 appearing within a passage
> which uses nonstandard spelling.
>
> Date: Oct 29, 1899
> Newspaper: The Salt Lake Herald
> Newspaper Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
> Article: New Yorker's Peril With Ogden Maniacs
> Quote Page 7, Column 3
> Database: GenealogyBank
>
> [Begin excerpt - please double check]
> Then we were lead to the stream running ice cold water and told to
> wash our own heads. We did so mid smarts and oaths and revengeance
> swearing. Then the voice of Gus was again heard over all, exclaiming:
> "Here, you guyses; brink me a towel, mine head to put ar-rr-ound. Vad
> you dink, it's kold aind id: you succors?"
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
> On Mon, Jun 26, 2023 at 10:54 AM Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I can't beat that, but there's this:
> >
> > 1971 Columbus [Ga.] Enquirer (May 7) 1: One writer from Kenosha, Wis.,
> > purports to have documented proof of Calley's innocence. ...The shadows
> of
> > the killers came from the North...and "you guyses (sic) shadows would
> have
> > come from the South."
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 26, 2023 at 1:14 AM James Eric Lawson <jel at nventure.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > Antedating?
> > >
> > > 1993  *Chicago Tribune* (Chicago, Illinois) 31 Oct 27 (newspapers.com)
> > > I do your guyses’ job for you.
> > >
> > > https://www.newspapers.com/article/chicago-tribune-guyses/127113684/
> > >
> > > The possessive apostrophe is likely a bonus from the reporter or
> editor.
> > >
> > >
> > > With the standard disclaimer (for what it's worth), "your guyses" was
> > > frequent among the colloquial speakers (as opposed to the academic
> > > types) I consorted with in Minnesota in the 1970s and 1980s.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 6/25/23 16:36, Barretts Mail wrote:
> > > > FWIW “Your guys’s way” is the form I use. “You guys’s” sounds
> > > ungrammatical regardless of how it may be parsed with logic. I
> distinctly
> > > recall pondering this some months ago when writing an email and decided
> > > that “your guys’s” is the only form that sounds grammatical to me.
> > > >
> > > > Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you_guys) calls my usage
> > > "nonstandard, limited to colloquial or dialectal speech.”
> > > >
> > > > Napoleon Dynamite is therefore also nonstandard and according to “The
> > > Cut,” Ben Pagoda has found a citation from 2002, the earliest instance
> of
> > > this nonstandard usage (
> > >
> https://www.thecut.com/2016/11/your-guys-is-american-english-at-it-roughspun-best.html
> > > ).
> > > >
> > > > There are opinions both ways on the English Stack Exchange (
> > >
> https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/12277/what-is-the-possessive-of-you-guys
> > > ).
> > > >
> > > > Benjamin Barrett (he/his/him)
> > > > Formerly of Seattle, WA
> > > >
> > > >> On Jun 25, 2023, at 13:22, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
> >
> > > wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> "You guys's" would seem to be sufficient for the Inglish of
> Tomorrow,
> > > but
> > > >> "YOUR guys's" is a little much.
> > > >>
> > > >> It seems to me that when I was very young - say, five - I may have
> used
> > > >> some "-s's" forms.
> > > >>
> > > >> But if so, I soon got over it.
> > > >>
> > > >> JL
> > > >>
> > > >> On Sun, Jun 25, 2023 at 2:31 PM Betty Birner <bbirner at niu.edu>
> wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >>> Friday night our (young) waiter said, “Can I get this board out of
> your
> > > >>> guys’s way?”  Pronounced [gaizəz].  And honestly, I’m sure I’ve
> heard
> > > "your
> > > >>> guys's" many times, and may have even uttered it myself.  FWIW, I'm
> > > about
> > > >>> an hour north of Chicago.
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>> -----Original Message-----
> > > >>> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf
> Of
> > > >>> Jonathan Lighter
> > > >>> Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2023 3:42 PM
> > > >>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > > >>> Subject: Re: Possessive plurals
> > > >>>
> > > >>> External Email. Think before you click or reply.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Cf. "your guys's garage" (Apr. 24).
> > > >>>
> > > >>> JL
> > > >>>
> > > >>> On Wed, Jun 7, 2023 at 2:52 PM Laurence Horn <
> laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> > > >>> wrote:
> > > >>>
> > > >>>>> On Jun 7, 2023, at 2:06 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> > > >>>>> <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > > >>>> wrote:
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> He's still doing it, even putting up on the screen for us "the
> > > cats's"
> > > >>>> and
> > > >>>>> "the humans's."
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> JL
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> And presumably "the foxes’s” (= “fak-siziz”) and "the lynxes’s"
> > > >>>> (“link-siziz”)
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> On Wed, May 31, 2023 at 12:02 PM Jonathan Lighter <
> > > >>>> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> > > >>>>> wrote:
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>>> I've been watching these Latin lessons on YouTube:
> > > >>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWUlrL6E_QU
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>> The instructor (a native speaker of English evidently, and
> > > >>>>>> youthful-sounding)  is clearly well educated, and he knows
> Latin.
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>> However, he says "abLAYtive" instead of "ABlative." He also
> talks
> > > >>>>>> about "female," "male," and "neutral" nouns instead of
> masculine,
> > > >>>>>> feminine,
> > > >>>> and
> > > >>>>>> neuter. More to the point, though, he routinely pronounces
> English
> > > >>>>>> possessive plurals with an excrescent "iz."
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>> Exx: students' > "studentsiz"
> > > >>>>>>        soldiers'   > "soldierziz."
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>> Is this something we should be doing? Or is it just a
> pedagogical
> > > >>>>>> stratagem?
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>> JL
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >
> > > --
> > > James Eric Lawson
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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