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 for singular they, I'm still requiring plural-only they in college
written work, on the assumption that this is what is expected in wider
use. I was surprised to find, however, that one of my students had been
marked down on a paper in a previous class for using "him/her" instead
of singular they. It's at times like these that the descriptivist in me
gives ground to the pragmatist: I don't care which system wins out, but
I wish we'd hit a firm consensus soon so I can stop worrying that I'll
get my students in trouble by teaching them the wrong thing. 

 

Bill Spruiell

 

Dept. of English

Central Michigan University

 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Layton
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 1:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: more teaching questions on grammar (singular "they")

 

Dick - The only problem with driving out the singular thou/thee is that
we are now left without a definitive plural - except, of course, if you
live in the South, where you solve this problem with "y'all."  To
rephrase Yakof Schmirnoff, "English.  Vat a language!"

________________________________

By the way, didn't a similar socio-political thing happen a few
centuries back with plural "you" becoming singular as a polite
alternative to singular "thou"? It proved so successful that it drove
thou/thee from the language. 

 

Dick Veit

 

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