[log in to unmask]" type="cite">ATEG Members:Here in Pittsburgh (Western PA), some locals refer to themselves (orally and on bumper stickers) as "yinzers" - derived from the use of "yinz" for the plural "you." This feature of the local dialect ("Pittsburghese") is viewed by locals with humor and a kind of self-deprecating pride, as in "we think it sounds awful, but this is who we are." Some local sociolinguistics have done interesting research on Pittsburghers' attitudes toward their own dialect. There are various Pittsburghese "translation" websites (e.g., www.pittsburghese.com), one of which translates John Kennedy's famous line as: "Ask not wah yinzes country can do fer you n'at. Ask wah yinz can do fer yinzes country." I don't know if yinz is the same as Warren's "y'uns." Perhaps "y'uns" is more common in rural areas in Western PA? Amanda On 9/25/07 4:38 PM, "Warren Sieme" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: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 ³you guys.² It¹s used for both men and women (so the ³guys² part doesn¹t have its usual masculine connotation) and, as kind of a clencher for the argument that it¹s acting as a unitary pronoun, the possessive in informal speech is ³you guys¹s² (the last word sounds exactly like ³guises²). 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, ³Y¹all got all y¹all¹s balls?² I knew I wasn¹t in Iowa any more. Dick Veit ________________________________ Richard Veit Department of English University of North Carolina Wilmington To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ ________________________________________________________________________ Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! - http://mail.aol.com To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/