# y'all/yous/youse/you guys/youse guys - you plural - are there equivalents in other Anglophone countries?



## JLanguage

Thanks,
-Jonathan.

<< Please see also:
Old English pronoun of "you" plural form?
...>>


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## Brioche

"Youse" is used in Australia.

It is very "lowest socio-economic group".


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## E-J

In the south east of England, we often say "you lot"


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## panjandrum

A huge and enthusiastic wave for *yous* all from Northern Ireland - but leave out the guys.  Adding *guys* is a generational thing - but still doesn't happen very much.  More common would be yous'n's, which is a contracted version of yous ones.

A large percentage of the population here routinely use yous as the plural form of you.  Roughly the same percentage will happily say "I seen ..." or "I done ...".


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## Ratona

In Liverpool/Manchester way I believe they also "yous"
I´m from just north of E-J and would also say "you lot", otherwise a simple "everyone" or "everybody" works nicely!
Or "peeps" can also be heard, I don´t know if this is now outdated??


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## Jessila

in american tv-shows, we often hear "you guys" or just "guys" like:
"Hi, guys!"

as for other places and uses... being in France, I don't know ^^


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## kiro

Ratona said:
			
		

> In Liverpool/Manchester way I believe they also "yous"


Yes, we do. 
I don't think I'd ever say "you guys", though - and definitely not "y'all" - unless I was doing an impression of an American.


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## veebs

in dublin, people with strong accents say yiz meaning yous 
and we say yiz'all meaning y'all. we also use ' yous'.


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## jess oh seven

in some parts of Scotland they say "yous"

my preferred one is "you guys"

oh the failings of the english language


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## Isotta

I am going to open the scope of the thread by offering an interesting tidbit: Appalachia has many equivalents of "y'all," which inlcude but are not limited to "you-ins," "you-uns," "yu'uns," and "yoons," and often vary from county to county.

Also I think the general American South "y'all" is catchy. I say "y'all," and by the time I left my English school in Hong Kong about sixty percent of my class said it, too. And in the American South, foreigners and Northerners often adopted the "y'all," even if they weren't Anglophone. 

Z.


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## owlman5

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> "You all " (often pronounced "y'all") is used in parts of the Untied States as a plural for "you", which is used as a singular.  _All of you_ is not used that way.  Notice, please, that this use of "y'all" is a distinctly regional use that will either be greeted with warm affection or that will set your hearers' teeth on edge, depending on where the hearers are from.


In Tennessee and parts thereabouts, they often use "you'uns" with the same meaning.  Though "ya'll" and "you'uns" don't set my teeth on edge, they certainly hold no place in my speech or writing.


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## ..JustBe..

Wow, this is interesting because I've heard all of those in America. It's very large, so we have a lot of regional differences. I'm from the East coast in New York... I would say we say "you guys" a lot. Like, "what are you guys up to?" or "whats up, you guys?"... Ya'll is usually associated with the south and generally the middle of the country. I think it is seen more negatively in my area as seeming uneducated, but of course, it obviously doesn't mean that. I have relatives in Virginia that say Ya'll.  As for yous guys, I want to say Jersey! People joke about that here too.


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## ..JustBe..

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> "You all " (often pronounced "y'all") is used in parts of the Untied States as a plural for "you", which is used as a singular.  _All of you_ is not used that way.  Notice, please, that this use of "y'all" is a distinctly regional use that will either be greeted with warm affection or that will set your hearers' teeth on edge, depending on where the hearers are from.




This is true, people cringe at "y'all" in New York.


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## neal41

..JustBe.. said:


> This is true, people cringe at "y'all" in New York.


 
'All' is a natural enclitic to distinguish plural you from singular you.  'Guys' is not.  There is no reason why for an Italian speaking English to say "y'all" instead of "you all".


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## Aidanriley

Yes, for the love of everything beautiful, don't say y'all.


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## JamesM

For the sake of completeness in the discussion,   there are actually parts of the U.S. where "y'all" is _singular _and "all y'all" is the plural.


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## m11

I agree with Just be.  It is a regional expression and here in California, people will either snicker or cringe at hearing it.  If I'm not mistaken, and I could be, it is primarily used in the Midwestern US


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## Aidanriley

m11 said:


> I agree with Just be. It is a regional expression and here in California, people will either snicker or cringe at hearing it. If I'm not mistaken, and I could be, it is primarily used in the Midwestern US


 
I will *cry* if someone says 'y'all' here. It is an unofficial southern variant of you-all that might as well be slang. I don't think it should be taught to students of English.


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## Istriano

> *y'all*
> *Pronounced:*
> 
> /ˈjɑ*:*l/
> *Meaning:*
> 
> _US  informal_   —used as a contraction of _you all_  ▪ _How are y'all doing tonight?_ ◊Like you-all, y'all is used mainly in speech in the Southern U.S. to address two or more people.


http://www.learnersdictionary.com/search/y'all



_You guys_ is preferred in other parts of US (even for talking to (two or more) girls  ).


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## Istriano

Aidanriley said:


> I will *cry* if someone says 'y'all' here. It is an unofficial southern variant of you-all that might as well be slang. I don't think it should be taught to students of English.




Well, the hottest UK band (Sugababes) is using it in their newest song: _About a girl_. 

PS
Students of English are not blind, ya know?
Sooner or later they will discover the real usage (just like _It's me_ vs _It is I_, no matter how much effort professors put on saying ''_It is I'_' is the way to go, students of English discover ''_It's me_''. )
I have a friend in Bakersfield (CA) and she told me people there use _y'all_ all the time.


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## mplsray

Forero said:


> Do you have context? I don't think "you all" works with singular _you_, but "all of you" (= "your whole self") does.



I don't know about "you all" being used as a singular, but according to a Google Books search, In Garner's Modern American Usage, Bryan A. Garner says, "For a recent argument that y'all can be singular, see Jan Tillery & Guy...." The preview cuts off there, but Guy is presumably Guy Bailey. Jan Tillery, Tom Wikle, and Guy Bailey have written a paper called "The Nationalization of a Southernism" (which may or may not be the source cited by Garner) which says the following:



> Our surveys of acknowledgments of the use of _you-all_ and _yall_ in the United States indicate that both of these forms (and especially the latter) are spreading rapidly outside the South.



Note that this was published in September 2000, and I can't say that I personally have noticed any increase of the use of these terms.


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## mplsray

Aidanriley said:


> I will *cry* if someone says 'y'all' here. It is an unofficial southern variant of you-all that might as well be slang. I don't think it should be taught to students of English.



I have to disagree on several levels. First, since there is no "official" Southern speech (or, for that matter, any other "official" variety of English), it makes no sense to refer to "y'all" as "unofficial." Second, I would not agree that it should be considered anything near slang: It's a _regionalism_ extremely widely used in the Southern US. Finally, I think that students of English as a foreign language should be taught it in order to add it to their passive English vocabulary, precisely because of its regional importance. I do not, however, think that they should be taught to use it--that is, to make it part of their active English vocabulary--until and unless they actually move to a region where it is widely used, and even then, whether to adopt it for one's own use is a question whose answer is not clear.


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## pickarooney

"Ye" is the preferred plural of "you" in much of rural Ireland.


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## Judica

All of them are used on the Mason Dixon Line (in Maryland, US) and it depends on what part of the State in which one lives.

"Youz all" is the one which makes me cringe.

I suggest that people learning English learn various terms once they get to a certain level. This way if they decide to visit the different English speaking countries they have some idea what people are saying.


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## JamesM

Here's a follow-up on "all y'all":

http://memphis.about.com/od/midsouthliving/qt/yall.htm

No matter how long you've lived in Memphis, you are most likely familiar with this basic southern word, but do you know how to use it correctly? 



While "y'all" is actually a contraction for "you all," it is most commonly used in place of the plural form of "you." "All y'all" or "all of y'all," on the other hand, is generally used in place of "you all." 

For example...
When speaking to two or three people: "Are y'all going to the movies?"
When speaking to several people: "Are all y'all going to the movies?"
Apparently "all y'all" is plural for a larger group in Memphis, at least according to this source. 


Here's another source:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A573978
'Y'all' should be used to address a smallish group of people; between one and five. It is an all-inclusive phrase in its ambiguity. It certainly comes in handy when you are addressing a group and you don't want to use Yankee equivalents such as the New York 'youse' or the Boston 'you guys'. 

Now, if you are addressing a larger group of people, the phrase 'all y'all' should be used.


Neither one says that "y'all" can be singular, but I'm sure I've run across that before. I'll keep digging.  It's an interesting thought to have a distinctive way to address a small group vs. a large group.


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## spatula

pickarooney said:


> "Ye" is the preferred plural of "you" in much of rural Ireland.


 
This is what my entire family says and I do too when I am with them.  I'm quite at a loss at not having an alternative when I'm not with Irish English speakers.  I'm also familiar with _'yeer'_ (spelling?) for plural 'yours' - ie _'is that yeers?'_ when addressing a group.


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## gladnhart

"Guys" is slang in any case, so the advice to a non-native speaker would be to know what it means, but avoid using it, in order to avoid inappropriate usage..

From the discussion, I can see that "y'all" is a loaded term for some people outside of the American South.  Personally, I use it (not being a southerner), in an informal, friendly way, and it is accepted comfortably by all of my acquaintances here in the Pacific Northwest


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## Giovanna-Ipazia

In Pittsburgh dialect, the 2nd person plural pronoun is "yinz." Speakers of this dialect are nicknamed "yinzers."

(My girlfriend is from Pittsburgh, but she majored in English at Chatham University, and only speaks Standard American English. "Yinz" has never once escaped her lips.)


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## Pedro y La Torre

I'd go as far as to say that "ye" is standard usage for most people in the South and West of Ireland. 
In Dublin, "youse" and/or "yiz" predominates, though ye will also be heard from time to time.



spatula said:


> I'm also familiar with _'yeer'_ (spelling?) for plural 'yours' - ie _'is that yeers?'_ when addressing a group.



As one would expect, yeer(s), as a plural form of yours, is very common here too.


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## ..JustBe..

Right, I'd imagine there would be in state differences also. CA is very long.  I'm from Long Island, New York but I go to school upstate. Once you get above a certain point people state speaking differently. We say soda, they say pop. Actually, even across the island is different. On the other side of the island they say cawfee and dawg. We all say you guys though. Regardless of gender.


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## Jacobtm

Something that is often ignored is that in some parts of the South, y'all is frequently used interchangeably as both second person plural AND SINGULAR. "All y'all" is unambiguously (repetitively) plural.


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## JamesM

I thought that, too, Jacobtm but I can't find a source to confirm it.


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## Jacobtm

JamesM said:


> I thought that, too, Jacobtm but I can't find a source to confirm it.



I mean, I've just heard it when I've been in Raleigh/Durham area of North Carolina, and heard it referenced by southerners in the past. 

Sources be damned, people talk like that. Not always, and it's not even like some people always do one or the other, but in my experience it's real.


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## se16teddy

Jacobtm said:


> Something that is often ignored is that in some parts of the South, y'all is frequently used interchangeably as both second person plural AND SINGULAR.


 
Yes, I received an Email the other day from a colleague who began a question _Is youall... _The colleague speaks a 'Sarf (South) London' form of English - influenced by both native English dialect and immigration from the Caribbean.



Istriano said:


> Well, the hottest UK band (Sugababes) is using it in their newest song: _About a girl_.


Many or most forms of pop music came to the UK from the US, often via black US singers, and UK singers have often imitated their speech patterns.


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## Nunty

Moderator note:

The topic of this thread is "y'all/yous/youse/you guys/youse guys - you plural - are there  equivalents in other Anglophone countries?"

Please reply to the question asked, without bringing in other topics like language learning. 

Thank you,
Nunty


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## catlady60

..JustBe.. said:


> This is true, people cringe at "y'all" in New York.


You nailed it, ..Just Be...  We say "youse" in the Northeast, particularly in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.


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## catlady60

Summary of nonstandard versions of the plural "you", particularly in the United States:

Northeast: _youse, yiz, youse guys
_South: _y'all (contraction of *you all*)
_Midwest and West: _you guys_
African-Americans, regardless of region: _y'all_ (because most black Americans are either from the South or of Southern ancestry).  There are exceptions: blacks without Southern ancestry *and *who grew up in predominantly European-American communities tend to follow the European-American regional patterns.  White American hip-hop fans and/or artists use _y'all _in their lyrics, even if they don't use it in everyday speech.

I don't know how they say it in New England.  Will some New Englanders contribute?


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## vasinger

Y'all is not ugly! I saw this thread and I just had to jump in. Im from Virginia and I CRINGE whenever someone says "you guys". A lot of people who have moved down here recently use it to both men and women. To me , the phrase "you guys" is what sounds uneducated and tacky. Y'ALL is perfectly acceptable, and anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant. Its not "slang". It makes no sense to stare blankly at a  group of women and say "how you are you guys?".  Not at all. How rrrrrr yow guyeeeeees. Like nails on a chalk board. Long live the South!


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## JamesM

Well, you might have a different reaction if you heard me saying it with a California accent, vasinger.    I know my Texas friends find it funny if I happen to say it by accident after hanging around them.  It is distinctly regional, although this thread proves that the regions are scattered across multiple countries.  I wouldn't call it slang but I would call it colloquial.


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## vasinger

If you're around Texans, then you probably think y'all sounds uneducated. Texans have their own way of speaking. Come to Virginia where we speak the King's English. Its a lot different. But I can see why some may view it that way. However, you guys is grating, but it actually seems to be ubiquitous so much that a lot of people I know from Georgia and South Carolina are saying it. I say you-all a lot more than y'all. But y'all is not bad if its not drawled out too much. Its such a handy lil 'ol pronoun.


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## mplsray

catlady60 said:


> Summary of nonstandard versions of the plural "you", particularly in the United States:
> 
> [/I]Midwest and West: _you guys_



I disagree that _you guys_ is nonstandard. It's a part of standard informal speech, and that includes its use when addressing a group which includes (or is entirely composed of) females.


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## mplsray

mplsray said:


> I disagree that _you guys_ is nonstandard. It's a part of standard informal speech, and that includes its use when addressing a group which includes (or is entirely composed of) females.



Lexicographers appear for the most part to agree with me. I found this sense of _guys_ listed in the following dictionaries, all of which use the label "nonstandard" and most of which use the label "slang" (see below for the Macmillan), but associate neither with _you guys._

The American Heritage Dictionary labels the use in question as "informal."

The Encarta Dictionary does not give _you guys_ a usage label, but has a Word Usage comment that the use with both sexes "may not receive universal approval."

The Macmillan Dictionary of American English labels the use of _guy_ for "a man" as "informal," and the use of _guys_ for addressing a group of people as "spoken." I have not been able to find if the Macmillan uses the usage label "slang" but it does have "nonstandard," and did not apply it to the word in question.

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, which does label such words as _irregardless_ as "nonstandard," and words such as _grand_ for "a thousand dollars" as "slang" uses no label for _guys_ in the sense in question.


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## Copperknickers

This is not a question about something in the English language that I'm not sure of but rather the opposite, so I don't know if this is the right section:

The word 'you' can refer to singular or plural, in standard British and English. However, in almost all regional contexts there is a 'you (plural)'. In fact, even when there is not one people often feel compelled to add something like 'all of you' afterwards. My questions are these: when most of the English speaking population use either 'yous', 'yinz' or 'y'all', why is this never recognised in writing? And also, are there any other versions of you plural?


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## JuicyJew

Most of the population uses yous, yinz or ya'll?

I think it's just because "you" already is sufficient as plural. 

You know we used to have one word for you plural (you) and one word for you singular (thou). Obviously we dropped it.


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## Copperknickers

Well, a very very big proportion. More or less everyone in Scotland and Ireland, almost all working class people in England, a great proportion of people in the American northeast and south, and also I believe Jamaicans have their own one.


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## JuicyJew

Something like I-and-I? Haha

I don't know... There's lots of slang the majority of people use. Doesn't mean it needs to become proper English. I guess particularly because the people who decide what is proper English would be mortified by the idea


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## Copperknickers

Slang is one thing, something that is common to millions and millions of people and has been in use for 500 years would seem to me to be proper English, as would be in any other such word.


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## JuicyJew

You mean words like "gimme" and "cos"?

I don't know , for me it's just a part of an accent. I say "youse" myself a lot. - Actually I just checked oxford, and "youse" is already in there. Ya'll is not though. But that makes a lot of sense because ya'll is more the pronounciation than a new word itself.


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## Copperknickers

JuicyJew said:


> You mean words like "gimme" and "cos"?
> 
> I don't know , for me it's just a part of an accent. I say "youse" myself a lot. - Actually I just checked oxford, and "youse" is already in there. Ya'll is not though. But that makes a lot of sense because ya'll is more the pronounciation than a new word itself.


 
Interesting. Does it say that youse is colloquial?


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## CapnPrep

JuicyJew said:


> Actually I just checked oxford, and "youse" is already in there. Ya'll is not though.


What do you mean you "checked oxford"? _Y'all_ is in the OED, with a first attestation in 1909. Most of the other forms mentioned here, plus others, are in there too: _you-all_, _yous/youse_, _yez/yeez/yiz_, _you-uns/youns_. Of course they are all listed as dialectal.


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## ewie

*Moderator note:* This thread has been merged with a previous monster one on the same subject.  Whether there's anything _new _left to say about the subject, I've no idea.


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## Pedro y La Torre

I've no idea why ye was ever dispensed with, (a great number of) the Irish decided not to and what a good idea it was too.


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## JuicyJew

CapnPrep said:


> What do you mean you "checked oxford"? _Y'all_ is in the OED, with a first attestation in 1909. Most of the other forms mentioned here, plus others, are in there too: _you-all_, _yous/youse_, _yez/yeez/yiz_, _you-uns/youns_. Of course they are all listed as dialectal.



Sorry my bad I just checked real quick. 

Y'all was there but not youns as far as I saw!

Anyway, yeah it's just listed as dialectal. Do you think it should be promoted?


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## Giovanna-Ipazia

vasinger said:


> Y'all is not ugly! I saw this thread and I just had to jump in. Im from Virginia and I CRINGE whenever someone says "you guys". A lot of people who have moved down here recently use it to both men and women. To me , the phrase "you guys" is what sounds uneducated and tacky. Y'ALL is perfectly acceptable, and anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant. Its not "slang". It makes no sense to stare blankly at a  group of women and say "how you are you guys?".  Not at all. How rrrrrr yow guyeeeeees. Like nails on a chalk board. Long live the South!


Yes. Thank you. My GF and I are really tired of being called "guys" whenever we go out somewhere. We get it here in Northern Virginia as bad as anywhere.


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## JamesM

I understand that some people have a reaction to "guys" but I prefer it to "people", which I've also heard used to refer to a group: "Now, people, it's time to get organized and start our workshop."  

I think it's interesting that vasinger argues "y'all" is standard and then goes on to identify it so strongly with the south, in the same way that those who don't say "y'all" identify it.  It can't be both ways.  Like it or not, there is a large part of the U.S. population that would find "y'all" very unnatural to say.  It is regional.  It is logical in many ways and very handy for those who have it in everyday conversation.  That still doesn't make it universal.


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## ribran

JamesM said:


> For the sake of completeness in the discussion,   there are actually parts of the U.S. where "y'all" is _singular _and "all y'all" is the plural.



James,

This claim has been made countless times, but I have yet to see any proof that it is true. I think the problem is that there are many cases in which _y'all_ can appear to be singular when, in fact, it is not.


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## JamesM

No, I agree.  I've been set straight here on WRF.    Did I write that a while back?  I hope so.   [edit] Yes, that was from a year and a half ago.  I'm older and (a little) wiser now.

"Y'all" is for a small group of people or a subset of a large group.  "All y'all" is "everyone".  Does that sound correct?

Your point about appearing to be singular is a good one.  I think I've seen situations where two people drive up in a car, one gets out and talks to a local who says, "Are y'all just visiting?" (or something similar)   There are only two people in the conversation but I imagine the local is referring to both people in the car, not just the person in the conversation.


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## ribran

JamesM said:


> "Y'all" is for a small group of people or a subset of a large group.  "All y'all" is "everyone".  Does that sound correct?



That's it.  It can be used to address a single person when that person is acting as a representative of a group. In the South, if a server in a restaurant asks a customer if he or she would like dessert, the customer may respond, "What do y'all have?"


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## Giovanna-Ipazia

JamesM said:


> I understand that some people have a reaction to "guys" but I prefer it to "people", which I've also heard used to refer to a group: "Now, people, it's time to get organized and start our workshop."


Nothing against the word per se—my objection is specifically about addressing a group comprised of all women. You can't go wrong with saying "ladies," and even "gals," if informality is in effect. (But "dudettes" is right out.)


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