I’m confused by this (and the NPR story) – isn’t “Y’all” a second person pronoun? Which are *never* gendered in English?
(On a tangent: I am always surprised that there’s no movement to abolish the *first* person plural. If you think about it, there is no context where its use isn’t problematic, and it’s trivially easy to avoid)
Seemed worth splitting into it’s own thread.
At least in most American dialects the main alternative to y’all is some form of “you guys”, which is definitely gendered. The only notable exception (aside from “Yo” apparently,) I know of is the western pennsylvania/eastern ohio “yinz”, which is a contraction of “you ones”.
Turns out not having a second person plural that’s not distinguishable from the second person singular is unhelpful and different regions have found different ways of overcoming the shortcoming. Personally I think English should never have moved away from the singular thou. That would have made it clear that you is only for plurals.
Less and less as time goes on, it seems to me. I’ve heard people address a group of women or a mixed group as “you guys” for years. I’d be okay with “y’all” or “youse”.
What’s @bobtato on about with the first person plural? Is he saying “we” should be eliminated, and replaced by “I”? We* don’t understand.
I was a “you guys” user until about 2 years ago. I’ve got a lot of transfemme friends who much prefer “Y’all” to “you guys” for obvious reasons, so I switched. Doesn’t hurt that I’ve lived in the south much longer than anywhere else, though even my scottish friends are getting on the Y’all train lately.
They have lots of links to the North of England, like how the Yorkshire chocolate factories were owned by quakers and Darlington FC are nicknamed The Quakers, but George Fox travelled all over Britain so it’s not specifically Northern.
Very interesting, since Pennsylvania was basically originally a quaker colony. Shame I’m out of touch with my linguist friend who could probably tell me more.
They certainly had a lot of members in the North but the North was generally full of non-conformist religious groups. Yorkshire for example is/was pretty heavily methodist (in various flavours). Also lots of Catholics by English standards (as in - any).
As I understand it the Quaker thee and thou is more historical than regional. It was the normal second person singular grammar of the day between social equals - and as far as they are concerned we are all equal so they used it for everyone.
