Re: The future of the English second person plural (was Re: Aquestion)

----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis Paul Himes <dennis@...>
To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Monday, August 16, 1999 10:43 AM
Subject: Re: The future of the English second person plural (was Re:
Aquestion)


Tom Wier <artabanos@...> wrote:
> This is in fact how Southerners deal with the fact that the standard
> language lacks the distinction.  George W. Bush, the son of the former
> President and the likely Republican nominee for the next President, was
> giving a speech yesterday in which he addressed the crowd as "you all".
> It occurred to me that he probably had to consciously think to use this
> form, since <y'all> has in Southern usage become fully grammaticalized,
> and so doesn't immediately lend itself to decontraction.  Certainly, *I*
> would have to consciously think to do this.
    However, my sister-in-law, who's from Kentucky, always uses "you all",
never "y'all".  She also uses "your all's" as the possesive, putting both
parts of the term into the possesive case.

<<<
Around here, people seem to say "you guys's" or "your guys's"... I can never
pick one I feel comfortable with, since they're both so awkward, so I tend
to be elliptical when I must talk about something oned by several people I'm
talking to. I also tend to say "am I not" instead of "ain't I" or "aren't
I," because "ain't" isn't really "respectable" and "aren't" is the wrong
form :)