Re: OT: All'y'all's's's's'...

On Fri, 13 May 2005 14:02:44 -0400, Sai Emrys <saizai@...> wrote:

>> Since I have never heard this from native speakers of the dialect, I
>> can only presume that it involves some kind of hypercorrection on their
>> part.
>
> Since I am not so... blessed as to be a native speaker of the dialect,
> I can say just that I find it amusing and hypercorrect for the sake of
> humor. However, I wonder if anyone does so "straight", as it were.
I'm a native British English speaker (Milton Keynes (i.e. bastard mongrel
freako) lect), transplanted to the middle of North Carolina (USA) for the
last five years. I started using "you all" within a year, and I'm using
"y'all" quite unconsciously by now. I use "y'all's" as the possessive of
"y'all" -- and also "your all's", for the same thing, which I can't fully
analyse without getting a headache.

I have been known to produce "all y'all" and "all y'all's" when I'm
talking to a subset of a group (with the rest of the group absent), and I
intend the message to apply to the whole group. I have also produced
"you'ns" when talking to a group, addressing a specific subset of that
group.

I have adapted to 2nd person plurality quite quickly and quite fully. Like
driving on the wrong side of the road, somehow it just feels more natural.

For comparison, back in England, I would sporadically produce "you guys"
(2pl vocative) and "you guyses" (2pl genetive), but not with any real
regularity, and only in certain company.




Paul

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