"You all" usage in American English

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IronMike
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Re: "You all" usage in American English

Postby IronMike » Fri Jul 16, 2021 12:07 am

mentecuerpo wrote:One more thing: The following does not contribute much to the discussion. I will say a disclaimer: I did not write that users of "you all" are uneducated. I wrote that in my opinion, "you all" usage sounded uneducated to my ears.

I did not wish to offend anyone with my post, and if someone takes offense or was offended, it was not my intent. If an apology makes you feel better for taking offense, I apologize to you all who took offense.

I did not take offense and no apology needed!
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Re: "You all" usage in American English

Postby Lemus » Fri Jul 16, 2021 12:15 am

The real trick is figuring out the proper use of "all y'all" since it would seem logically that it is redundant.

In my experience it is used as a way to emphasize that there are no exceptions ("all y'all need to help" would imply that there are perhaps some in the group that might try to get out of it). I have heard that there are some people, in the south generally, who use y'all as a singular though and then all y'all as the second person plural although I personally don't run into many people who would use y'all as a singular.
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Re: "You all" usage in American English

Postby IronMike » Fri Jul 16, 2021 12:18 am

Lemus wrote:The real trick is figuring out the proper use of "all y'all" since it would seem logically that it is redundant.

In my experience it is used as a way to emphasize that there are no exceptions ("all y'all need to help" would imply that there are perhaps some in the group that might try to get out of it). I have heard that there are some people, in the south generally, who use y'all as a singular though and then all y'all as the second person plural although I personally don't run into many people who would use y'all as a singular.

hahaha! You brought back memories. My sisters and I knew that when our mom said "all y'all" that she meant business!
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Re: "You all" usage in American English

Postby FyrsteSumarenINoreg » Fri Jul 16, 2021 9:41 am

hai jɑːl 8-)

What are possessives of y'all and you guys?
I've heard: your guys'...what is your guys' opinion?
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Re: "You all" usage in American English

Postby Gordafarin2 » Fri Jul 16, 2021 10:06 am

FyrsteSumarenINoreg wrote:hai jɑːl 8-)

What are possessives of y'all and you guys?
I've heard: your guys'...what is your guys' opinion?

I grew up using "you guys", but close to the "you guys"/"y'all" border. A geographical border and a class border, IMO. It might be different further south, but in my region there was definitely some snobbishness looking down on people who use y'all.

My possessive is your guys', like you said. (Pronounced "your guyses") It doesn't seem quite correct, but that was always what sounded right and most natural to me. And the posessive of y'all is y'all's.

Where are your guys' houses?
Where are y'all's houses? Though if I were to unabbreviate it to you-all, I wouldn't hesitate to say "your all's"... :|

Then in England there's the less common, but still used, "you lot". It's definitely not as ubiquitous as y'all. Interestingly, I asked my in-house Southern British English speaking consultant (my partner), and he couldn't produce a sentence that used "you lot" in the possessive.
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Re: "You all" usage in American English

Postby Dragon27 » Fri Jul 16, 2021 11:11 am

Gordafarin2 wrote:My possessive is your guys', like you said. (Pronounced "your guyses")

Shouldn't it be "your guys's" then?
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Re: "You all" usage in American English

Postby Walinator » Fri Jul 16, 2021 12:16 pm

Dragon27 wrote:
Gordafarin2 wrote:My possessive is your guys', like you said. (Pronounced "your guyses")

Shouldn't it be "your guys's" then?

In English, if a word ends in an "s", then you just put an apostrophe for the possessive instead of 's. So Tony's cat vs. Alexis' cat.
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Re: "You all" usage in American English

Postby Dragon27 » Fri Jul 16, 2021 12:39 pm

Walinator wrote:In English, if a word ends in an "s", then you just put an apostrophe for the possessive instead of 's. So Tony's cat vs. Alexis' cat.

Not necessarily. For plural nouns - yes, because plurals aren't pronounced with an additional /əz/. Girls' is pronounced /ɡɝlz/, not /ɡɝlzəz/. But singular names can easily be "James's", for example (/d͡ʒeɪmzəz/). Different writers/styleguides have different (and contradictory) rules and conventions (one can read about them on the wiki-page linked below), but the most logical rule is to follow the pronunciation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostroph ... z%22_sound
Many respected authorities recommend that practically all singular nouns, including those ending with a sibilant sound, have possessive forms with an extra s after the apostrophe so that the spelling reflects the underlying pronunciation.

Sure, "you guys" is not a singular noun, but it's not a plural noun either (it's a plural pronouns (: ). More importantly, the reason why the apostrophe isn't followed by 's' for possessive plural nouns ending with 's', is because they don't have that additional s' in their pronunciation. So if we pronounce this possesive pronoun as /ɡaɪzəz/, then it should make more sense to write "guys's" as well.
Last edited by Dragon27 on Fri Jul 16, 2021 1:25 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: "You all" usage in American English

Postby Walinator » Fri Jul 16, 2021 12:49 pm

Dragon27 wrote:
Walinator wrote:In English, if a word ends in an "s", then you just put an apostrophe for the possessive instead of 's. So Tony's cat vs. Alexis' cat.

Not necessarily. For plural nouns - yes, because plurals aren't pronounced with an additional /əs/. Girls' is pronounced /ɡɝlz/, not /ɡɝlzəz/. But singular names can easily be "James's", for example (/d͡ʒeɪmzəz/). Different writers/styleguides have different (and contradictory) rules and conventions (one can read about them on the wiki-page linked below), but the most logical rule is to follow the pronunciation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostroph ... z%22_sound
Many respected authorities recommend that practically all singular nouns, including those ending with a sibilant sound, have possessive forms with an extra s after the apostrophe so that the spelling reflects the underlying pronunciation.

Sure, "you guys" is not a singular noun, but it's not a plural noun either. More importantly, the reason why apostrophe isn't followed by 's' for possessive plural nouns ending with 's', is because they don't have that additional /s/ in their pronunciation. So if we pronounce this possesive pronoun as /ɡaɪzəz/, then it should make more sense to write "guys's" as well.


Sometimes its good to get a reminder that you know nothing of your own native language. :lol:
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Re: "You all" usage in American English

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Fri Jul 16, 2021 2:35 pm

I would absolutely say “your guys’s” but it sounds awkward. (I say awkward things all the time, even in my native language.) But I would never, ever write “your guys’s.” (Except I just did, twice… ugh.) There isn’t ever going to be a standard spelling for it. It’s just not used as written language.
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