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[HillWilliam]

77. Oh, don't get me wrong

I'm southern up and down so I use "y'all" all the time: at home (where my accent is thickest, but hey, it's home), with my neighbors, my friends, etc.

I would never include it in a business memo or letter, nor in professional correspondence. That's the only reason I'd term both my familiar and beloved "y'all" and my DH's "youse" verbal atrocities. I'm might walk around saying "Y'all have a great day!", but to say or write it in a formal setting, not so much.

I thought about your example and it occurred to me that I say "See y'all later" or something equivalent to an individual on parting company. It sends the sense of your best wishes beyond the person to whom you're speaking. I think it's something on the lines of "my good intentions are extended to your family and friends though you". At least, that's how we mean it in my part of the south.

I've often wondered how it is that English evolved with only one second person nominative. All the other languages in which I'm fluent distinguish second person singular and plural. There are also separate formal and informal forms. As rich as English is in every other way, an ambiguous, rather lonesome "you" stands out as an almost-unique deficiency.

Now, where I come from there is a further atrocity that, oh yes I do use with my relatives. It's "y'uns". It's the Appalachian equivalent of "y'all". I would ask my mom and aunts "are y'uns going to the DAR meeting this week?" and neither would bat an eye. My DH thinks it's a hysterical manner of speech, so I refuse to grace him with "y'uns".

Another word we have in the south meaning "a collection of other, unnamed parties" would be "an-nem". "Are y'all going to church with momma an-nem this week?" meaning roughly "Are all of you going to church with my mother and anyone else she might bring along?" (Actually, now that I think about it, it comes out more like "mommanem", an even worse verbal atrocity heh)

Sigh, yes, I say an-nem in familiar company all the time. I was raised a bit old fashioned with a great deal of education in English grammar, construction, and mechanics (not that you could tell on a board). I love the Elizabethan lilt and fanciful constructions of the almost-dead version of English I grew up with in the mountains of NC. Without tv, radio, or much outside contact, storytelling and playful constructions were about the only entertainment to be had. So long as I'm alive, the dialect will never die.

We also call a grocery bag a "poke". A mesh container with a certain tuber is "a poke o' taters". We often complain we spent $50 at the grocery store and only came home with two pokes.

Whilst I'm on about it: there is another atrocious bend in English I grew up with: "they've" in place of "there is" or "there are". "They've four pokes of groceries in the trunk of the car. Y'all younguns get on up now and bring 'em inside." Eeeeyyyeah, it slips out every now and then.