Re: Californian vowels [was Re: Liking German]

Tom Wier wrote:
Jerry Sadock,
>the syntax professor here, informs me that <youse> is
>also fairly widespread, but <y'all> is spreading faster.
>That too does not surprise me;  there are between 75 and
>100 million Southerners who use it.

"Y'all" is actually quite handy when it's really necessary to emphasize the
plurality. "Youse", I should think, is pretty well stigmatized (at least for
older speakers) due to associations with bad gangster movies and caricatured
Brooklynites.  In real life, I've only heard it once-- from the sergeant who
greeted our smart-ass Boston group of army inductees at Ft. Dix NJ.  "Youse
guys. Watch yer wallets, cuz dis place is fulla tieves...".  I was later
stationed in Columbia SC, where I heard enough y'alls to last a lifetime.