There is also "youse" and "youse guys". I've heard both in northern Ohio. But on a broader point, we've been reporting fascinating and entertaining anecdotal evidence of various ways non-Standard dialects create distinct second person plural pronouns. This topic has been researched in great depth by dialectologists. "Youse (guys)" is international, found in Ireland, Scotland, Australia, SW Ontario, and NE US. "Youse" is found as a singular in NY. "Y'all" is SE US. "You guys" appears to be found in most dialects outside the South, and "you'uns" is Midwestern US and Appalachian.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Warren Sieme
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 4:39 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Y'all and you guys
My Mom was from Western Pennsylvania. She would never think of
referring to the plural you as "you all," or as "y'all." To her, if
more than one of you were going somewhere, it would be, "Are y'uns
goin' dawntawn?" If it was a really big group, it would be "y'unses"
Warren
-----Original Message-----
From: Veit, Richard <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 1:57 pm
Subject: Y'all and you guys
I had the reverse experience from the one
Bill Spruill quoted:
As
a native Southerner, I was amused (but not very surprised) to notice
that my
students in Michigan
have their own plural version as well – “you guys.” It’s
used for both men and women (so the “guys” part doesn’t have
its usual masculine connotation) and, as kind of a clencher for the
argument
that it’s acting as a unitary pronoun, the possessive in informal speech
is “you guys’s” (the last word sounds exactly like “guises”).
As a freshly transplanted Northerner in Wilmington, North
Carolina, thirty years ago, I was invited by my chair
to play tennis. Some confusion arose about which tennis balls on the
court
belonged to whom, and when the student on the adjacent court asked me,
“Y’all
got all y’all’s balls?” I knew I wasn’t in Iowa any more.
Dick Veit
________________________________
Richard Veit
Department of English
University of North Carolina Wilmington
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