If you say “y’all” or “ain’t” in my presence, you’re automatically stupid as hell.
sqbr:
Agreed.
I’m originally from Gaston County, North Carolina, which is RIGHT IN THE FUCKING MIDDLE OF THE BIBLEBELTED SWEET TEA DRINKING FUCKHOLE, and I said it all of my life up until I moved to the coast. Nobody says it unless they want to get beat up.
Fucking.
Thank.
You.
It’s like, I hear it at home, and I hate it. If I’m calling for people, I say “hey you guys” or “hey guys”, but “ya’ll” is like…wat?
It pisses me off to no end.
Oh wow I wonder how it would feel to be as sophisticated as you are! How intelligent and classy!
I wish someone had just told me how much of a bumpkin I was, and am, because I learned to speak in local dialect! If only I, too, had been fortunate enough to live on the coast, where evidently I could have been curbed of my shameful habit by roaming bands of people who would “beat me up” for saying “y’all”! Astonishing! Perhaps a tour of the “coast” (would love to know which) would help me become acquainted with a better, more acceptable American English.
I was so ashamed by your shrewd linguistic analysis (“but “ya’ll” is like…wat?”) that I decided to quickly gather some information on the extent of this awful social problem. Luckily, Wikimedia provided a map of the areas where the phrase “y’all” is especially common.
[Map of US, states marked as saying “You all” “You guys”, “You”, or “Y’all”] So we could really grasp the scope of this issue, I did a quick search of the populations of these contraction-blighted areas. The results are grim. A full 25% of the US population is need of serious linguistic intervention, and fast!
[Table listing and summing the populations of the “y’all” states]
These figures aren’t good. With 25% percent of the US population admitted “y’all”-sayers, you have your work cut out for you: it will take quite a bit of time to cure the ignorance of 77,441,911 people! You have quite a lot of educating to do. However, I’m confident that with your help we can learn to curb our ways and quit being such moronic shitstains!
short OP: “lolol southern people are hicks”
Y’all is an awesome word, okay? The English language needs a y’all. Other languages have a second person plural, so why shouldn’t we? And what are the alternatives? “You guys”? Oh, how classy and completely unproblematic wrt to gender!
TBH I think more non-Southerners should start using it. I do.
It’s more class than region based, but there is a similar snobbery in Australia towards “youse”. And youse is right, second person plural words are super useful :) *spends a while wondering if I have the grammatical usage of “youse” right*
I say y’all because “you guys” is too gendered for my taste and I can’t say “yinz” for so many reasons I don’t have room to type them all.
But fuck anybody for looking down their nose at somebody because of dialect.
Y’all are classist.
I have lived in NY my entire life and still use “ain’t” and “y’all” at times. I can’t help myself with “you guys” a lot, but I’ll keep working on that.
I ain’t looking down on anyone who uses them. That’s just plain old snobbery.
Because how dare other parts of an entire continent have different modes of speech even within similar languages that differ from area to area.
Fuck off, y’all.
Y’all is a gender neutral plural form of the word ‘you.’ It is an understandable, practical, legitimate part of the English vernacular.
Take your grammar snobbery and get it away from me.
I’m no linguist, but different regions have different dialects, and no one should be shamed or made to feel stupid because of theirs. Honestly, I can’t recall the last time I’ve heard “ain’t”, but “y’all” is such a common part of our every day speech where I’m living that I would be shocked if I went a few hours without hearing it. And I surround myself with people who are undoubtedly far more educated than the OP. That being said, my colleagues and I aren’t going to be publishing papers using any sort of local vernacular, but who gives a single fuck as to what anyone says when speaking candidly as long as it’s understandable and not said out of hate?
Fuck, y’all, srsly.
