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How do you spell...

Pata

By Pata,
in General Education Discussion Board

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How do you spell y'all?  

  1. 1. How do you spell y'all?

    • y'all
      195
    • ya'll
      28
    • another way which I posted below
      4

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mommaduck

mommaduck

Posted
Posted (edited)
Well, sure. If you are speaking french, it is appropriate to do with a french accent. But I don't understand what that has to do with this conversation. Are you saying if you go to the south you should pretend to sound like you are from there? Because to me, that is making fun of people.

 

But how am I suppposed to know if you are excellent at customer service or your job if you sound like you don't know how to speak?

Oh goodness, I really cannot believe that I have to spell this out for you. Appropriate times for "proper" English with as little dialectical/minimally accented as possible, for such events as interviews or public speaking would be naturally presumed. With ones own family and friends or with certain types of jobs in a particular region, one may use their own dialect, quirks and all, and as heavy as an accent as they are accustomed to. There are certain situations certain service people are put in where saying "ya'll" or "hon" could diffuse a potential issue, keep another person calm, or even cause one to appear more friendly rather than stand offish. This is also considered "appropriate usage".

 

On the last part, it is your own assumptions based on a faulty foundation and a bias you seem to be choosing to feed. BTW, I know an illiterate person that is excellent with money. I didn't "assume" anything about him based on his speech or his inability to read.

Edited by mommaduck
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Laurie4b

Laurie4b

Posted
Posted (edited)
We were taught it makes people sound uneducated and ignorant.

 

And don't flame me and tell me you say it and how educated you are. You can be very educated. But if you y'all through an entire conversation, it makes you SOUND uneducated.

 

Ha! That's just Yankee predjudice! (I confess that I had the same reaction to southern accents when I first moved to the South. I think it was because I had only heard them used on TV on shows like the Beverly Hillbillies.)

 

I revised my opinion many years back. :D

 

I converted to y'all because it fills in gap in English and is mighty convenient for differentiating the person or people one is addressing.

 

Y'all Yankees sound unedgeecated when you snort y'all's vowels up y'all's noses! :lol::auto:

Edited by Laurie4b
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JudoMom

JudoMom

Posted
Posted
The right way: y'all.

 

It's a contraction of you + all = y'all.

 

I'm from the South, so I know, but I do have a poor, dear, misguided friend from further south (Missippi, to be exact, and that's no typo, that's how she says it) who spells it wrong: ya'll. Like fingernails down the chalkboard to see it that way!

 

That is all! ;)

 

:lol: We just returned from a trip to visit my family in TN. We ended up in Missippi (on purpose), and I had to explain to my wonderful, WI born dh how to say it properly. :lol:

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mommaduck

mommaduck

Posted
Posted
No, it makes you sound like you're from the South. I have never met a person who does not say "y'all," including every prof at every college I've ever attended.

 

I think there is a natural linguistic pull toward filling holes in the language, from second person plural to clarifying (and sometimes DE-clarifying) pronouns.

Ty!

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grace'smom

grace'smom

Posted
Posted

I am from the south and my parents are from the deep south. I do use the word "yall" in conversation with good friends, but I do not use it in written form. I think if you're going to write out the word at all you have broken far enough from proper grammar usage that it really doesn't matter how you write it. :lol:

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Farrar

Farrar

Posted
Posted

I grew up in the south and always saw it spelled "ya'll" on the few occasions it was spelled. It was not until I got to college that northerners tried to tell me it should be "y'all." I agree that it follows contraction rules, but I still can't accept it. It just looks wrong to me. Presumably this sort of attitude is what got English into most of our spelling messes, of which there are so very many...

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Rosie_0801

Rosie_0801

Posted
Posted
No, it makes you sound like you're from the South. I have never met a person who does not say "y'all," including every prof at every college I've ever attended.

 

That depends who is listening, as I'm sure we all understand.

 

I think there is a natural linguistic pull toward filling holes in the language, from second person plural to clarifying (and sometimes DE-clarifying) pronouns.
Indeed; but I still couldn't bring myself to say ya'll or y'all, or even "youse" which is more culturally appropriate here. "You lot" sounds so much better, but no I don't use that in a formal setting :)

 

Rosie

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AuntieM

AuntieM

Posted
Posted
As has been stated before:

 

"English is a mongrel that follows other languages down dark alleys, assaults them, and goes through their pockets looking for loose grammar."

 

English is constantly changing, never consistent, has many variables and dialects, etc.

 

Thanks for posting this, it is funny and SO TRUE! I will share it with my teens, they will appreciate it!

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Aubrey

Aubrey

Posted
Posted

My grandmother got into painting t-shirts and things when I was a kid. She showed up at our house one year proudly sporting a sweatshirt that said, "Merry Christmas, ya'll."

 

My 7yo self proceeded to stand there and correct her punctuation. She was more flabbergasted than anything, but she argued with me.

 

My dad had to step in & tell me I was being disrespectful. And as soon as she was out of earshot, he grinned & told me I was right. :lol:

 

Fwiw, grm's family was from Mississippi. (A long time ago.)

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SophiaH

SophiaH

Posted
Posted
Beats the northern "you guys" or worse, "youse guys" in my book! I've lived under both systems. :001_smile:

 

Or y'uns as my mom and all her family says (rural MO).

 

Ahhhh, but how do you say "wash", LOL? (This from someone who is from TN.....)

 

Again, my mom and her family would say "warsh." :glare:

 

When my dh first met them years ago, he couldn't understand much of what my grandmother was saying. I had never really thought about it before then since I'd grown up listening to it. :) I love listening to my gma now, though. So precious!

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ereks mom

ereks mom

Posted
Posted
Now see, I'd debate this. In my experience (Southern born and raised), y'all is never used in the singular. Except in Hollywood productions with poor dialect coaches.

 

Absolutely. :iagree:

 

I'm also a Southerner--born in Georgia, raised in Georgia, still living in Georgia.

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GraceinMD

GraceinMD

Posted
Posted
:svengo:

 

Unless you are writing dialogue for a southern epic, the contraction of you all never needs to be spelled, does it?

 

 

I usually write ya'll (contraction of ya all (grammar rules notwithstanding)). My dh is a linguist and he would agree that language is dynamic, not static, and thus, ya'll will eventually make its way into the language.

 

My problem is that my email "auto-correcter" is apparently not from the same part of the south that I am: it consistently changes my "ya'll" to "y'all!" Maybe you're right, Daisy, and I should just stop writing it altogether!

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Greta

Greta

Posted
Posted

*Spell* it?!? You mean people actually commit this word to print? I had a glass of wine with dinner tonight, and was horrified to discover that in my compromised state, this word slipped out of my mouth. I did grow up in Oklahoma, so I'll use that as my excuse. But, good heavens, I'd never put it in writing!!! :lol:

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silliness7

silliness7

Posted
Posted
We were taught it makes people sound uneducated and ignorant.

 

And don't flame me and tell me you say it and how educated you are. You can be very educated. But if you y'all through an entire conversation, it makes you SOUND uneducated.

 

 

No it doesn't. It makes you sound Southern.

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justamouse

justamouse

Posted
Posted (edited)
Ha! That's just Yankee predjudice! (I confess that I had the same reaction to southern accents when I first moved to the South. I think it was because I had only heard them used on TV on shows like the Beverly Hillbillies.)

 

I revised my opinion many years back. :D

 

I converted to y'all because it fills in gap in English and is mighty convenient for differentiating the person or people one is addressing.

 

Y'all Yankees sound unedgeecated when you snort y'all's vowels up y'all's noses! :lol::auto:

 

Hey now! This Yank loves dialect tweaks. And, I love how people who speak with a dialect disarm those around them. It's fun to meet the president of a bank, or more recently, a tobacco company, that y'alls all over the place and yet has a private jet fly him home each night.

 

I don't those men sound uneducated because they say y'all. They sound like they're southern gentlemen.

Edited by justamouse
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justamouse

justamouse

Posted
Posted
No the sky didn't fall.

 

But I'd really have to think long and hard about hiring you for a job if you youzed or y'alled through the interview. And I'd end up checking my reciept to make sure you charged me correctly if you were ringing up my bill for something.

 

I don't need your stinkin job. I will hire YOU though. ;) We need a chemist if you happen to be one.

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KidsHappen

KidsHappen

Posted
Posted
Well, sure. If you are speaking french, it is appropriate to do with a french accent. But I don't understand what that has to do with this conversation. Are you saying if you go to the south you should pretend to sound like you are from there? Because to me, that is making fun of people.

 

No, but if you visited France and held their accents against them, well that would just be presumptuous. No one expects you to talk like you are from the south, simply not to hold it against them especially if you happen to be in the south.

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MelanieM

MelanieM

Posted
Posted
Because I'm Australian, not an American from the South.

 

:D

Rosie

 

Right. But I guess my question was more about why is the contraction itself an issue, from a proper grammar perspective. If the phrase 'you all' is acceptable, then why wouldn't 'y'all' be appropriate?

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Sebastian (a lady)

Sebastian (a lady)

Posted
Posted
I love LFC for the reason they discuss the use of y'all. :D The town next to ours has a big highway sign that uses y'all in the town greeting.

 

If that's Florence, the story I've heard is they discovered after the fact that they couldn't put the name of a business on government property. So Mall was painted out to read Y'all.

 

That's what I've always heard from my family in the area.

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