Plural You

(From an argument in SingularThey that the word "you" is plural:)

I'm not sure what is meant by "you ... [is] plural". It's the formal form of "thou", which has fallen out of favour. "Thou" is a sort of very personal finger pointing (like the French "tu"), whereas you (like the French "vous") is less personal and hence can be used more abstractly for one or more people. -- AnthonyLauder

This depends upon where you are; in South Yorkshire, "thou" seems to be used frequently as both a singular and plural. In rural North Yorkshire, "thou" is still used as a singular familiar and "you" as a plural. In Ireland (and Liverpool scouse dialect), "you" is used as a singular and "yous" as a plural. In Texas, "y'all" is the plural form. In Pittsburgh, the plural form is "yins".

In Ireland "yous" is mainly confined to Dublin. In other parts of the country the plural is "ye". "you guys" is coming into usage among the younger generation (though interestingly not "y'all") - Eamon

second second person person location singular plural context ---------- -------- -------- ------- English you you (modern, 1990s American TV and newspaper English) KJV thou you ("the King's English" in 1611 England ) Texas you y'all (rural Southwest America) Pittsburgh you yins German du ihr Norwegian du dere France tu vous Spain tu vosotros (familiar) Spain usted ustedes (formal) ??? "only you" you

: I don't think I've ever come across "thou" used as a plural in South Yorkshire. It certainly sounds wrong to at least one person who was born and raised in the West Riding -- RomanStawski?

y'all vs. all y'all

: Correction: In Texas (and most of The South), "y'all" is singular, and "all y'all" is plural.

I'm a native Texan (raised in Arlington, home of the Texas Rangers baseball team), and "y'all" is plural, and "you" is singular. -- KeithRay

My wife is Texan, from Fort Worth, and one of her friends said "only a Texan really understands the difference between Y'all and all y'all. Both are plural, and as far as an Englishman can tell "y'all" is just a plural "you" whereas all y'all means something like "each and every one of you" but with some difference in shade of meaning which is "Just beyond anyone not native to Texas...". Maybe a Texan could comment...

Sure. "All y'all" is short for "all of y'all" (e.g. "all y'all are under arrest."), just like "sum y'all" is short for "some of y'all" (e.g. "sum y'all will not grad-u-ate.") -- KeithRay

Fascinating. I was born in Mississippi, am living in Alabama, and until this moment had never noticed the usage of "all y'all". It's not something I say frequently, if ever, but I definitely recognize it. Anyway, plain-old "y'all" is definitely plural. And in the really rural parts of Mississippi, it is pronounced "gray-j'ate" :) -- Richard Rapp

[more recently moved from SingularThey]

This is not unique to Texas. Here in North Carolina, we also have singular "you", plural "y'all", and plural "all y'all" (meaning "each and every one of you"). This "y'all is singular, all y'all is plural" is a common misconception that was perpetuated by a stupid joke e-mail (Now you've gone and let the yankees in on the joke.) that went around for a few years. The confusion probably arises because you can use "y'all" when speaking to a single person, but it is understood to mean "you and the group with which you are commonly associated". For example, if I end a conversation with my friend with "y'all have a good weekend", it means "you, your wife, and your kids have a good weekend". -- EddieDeyo

One of the biggest differences between "y'all" and "all y'all' can be seen in the following question. If I were to ask a group of people "Do y'all have a car," I would most likely mean do you have a car between you all. If I were to ask "Do all y'all have a car," I would be asking if each person in the group owned a car. Or if I were addressing a crowd, I might ask "Do y'all have parents in the military?"... I would want the people with parents in the military to answer affirmatively. If I were to ask "Do all y'all have parents in the military?" I would be either asking for a response from any individual who might be able to answer for the whole crowd (if every single person had parents in the military) or I would be asking for people who did not have parents in the military to speak up. I am implying that I think that most people in the audience have parents in the military with the question. There are dozens of contexts here, so to some extent, you need to be a native Texan or Southerner to really understand the different variations. For the most part, "y'all" could replace "all y'all," but "all y'all" will not replace "y'all" in all situations. From that standpoint, "all y'all" carries a more specific meaning than "y'all" --Carter Mayfield

You guys

How about "you guys"? "I don't know what you guys think, but I could use a large pizza with everything on it right about now." -- ApoorvaMuralidhara (northeastern U.S.) [Ah, but then the gals start complaining.]

You guys is the preferred form in the Pacific Northwest, as well. Nobody seems to complain about the gender issue; women often use "you guys" when addressing other women. Occasionally you hear "you gals" or "you girls".

I'm from Oklahoma. "y'all" (you all) is always plural here, although we realize this is a local thing and often use "you" for plural. Singular second-person is always "you". "all y'all" means something like "each of you". So "I need y'all to move that table" means that one or more people from your groop needs to move the table -- perhaps it's light enough for a single person to move -- I only care that it *does* get moved. While "I need all y'all to move that table" means this table is *really* heavy, and I need every one to help. I remember being astonished the first time I heard a lady (obviously NotFromAroundHere?) address a all-female group as "you guys". -- DavidCary

Merriam-Webster says:

the one or ones being addressed - used as the pronoun of the second person singular or plural in any grammatical relation except that of a possessive <you may sit in that chair> <you are my friends> <can I pour you a cup of tea> - used formerly only as a plural pronoun of the second person in the dative or accusative case as direct or indirect object of a verb or as object of a preposition; compare THEE, THOU, YE, YOUR, YOURS

There is a good discussion of "yall," "youse," and "yuns" which matches up to my understanding of proper Texan as taught by my parents. See: http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/drlang006.html -- MarkInterrante

You and thou

To return briefly to the points made about "You" and "Thou" and their relationship in the English language. It is thought that the words have been subject to a good degree of LanguageDrift? (or SpellingDrift?) since the middle ages. Texts from the dark ages commonly use the letter symbol "Y" to represent places where the sound "th" would be used in modern writing. Examples include the "Ye"/"The" pair so commonly seen on tourist traps in England.

The link to the French "tu" and "vous" becomes therefore more obvious, as does the link to the term "tha" (a contraction/dialect form of "you" used in some parts of Northern England) and possibly the Scotish "ye" (not to be confused with the oldform of the "ye", the scots use "ye" as "you")

The connection between forms is more obvious in the North of England, where vowel forms are generally pronounced in a shorter manner. - Jesthrian

"You and You" Singular and Plural in other nations

Australia definitely has a sub-culture of using "youse" as the plural form of you. Although it is considered 'straian' English. (straian is Aussie slang for Australian) "Youse" is often spelled 'ewes' to show its less than appropriate nature.

Don't you mean 'strine'? As in Let Stalk Strine by Afferbeck Lauder (ISBN 0701816066 and ISBN 0725406011 ).

Plural of You Around the Nation

If I may add something about how people commonly think natives of New Jersey and thereabouts pluralize "you." We were taught in school that the plural of you is you (plural). We used to be drilled in conjugating verbs and we would recite things like: "I sit, you sit, he, she or it sits; we sit, you sit, they sit."

That is why, even if a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Dallas says "y'all," I still can't take him seriously as an "educated person." I would love to be a fly on the wall of a Texas (or other Southern) English class to see how teachers there teach the plural of you. It's one thing to use regional dialects informally, but I think everyone should be taught standard English in school.

That said, there is a misconception that Northerners, including New Jerseyans and New Yorkers, pluralize you as either "you guys" or even worse, "youse." Not so. Virtually every educated person in the region pluralizes you as you. Years ago, you'd hear someone without much education from a place like Paterson or Jersey City say something that probably would have been spelled "yous," but was pronounced more like "ya's." Just a play on the informal pronunciation of you as "ya," (as in "How ya doin'?" So, by extension, more than one person would be asked "How yas, doin'?" But that is just lazy pronunciation, not anything anyone with an education regards as correct.

If a Southerner wants to use "y'all" in the same sense, just as an informal, colloquial expression to use in eveyday conversation, fine. But don't try to tell me that "y'all" is regarded as proper English for formal speech, anywhere, the South included. I'm not really as snobby as I sound, but people should be taught the rules before they break them, so they realize what rule they are making an exception to. This is also important in the written language. People tend to write (and spell) as they speak.

Maybe we should address the term "standard" English. It is necessary to have an agreed upon set of standards, but foolish to fall into the trap of mistaking the current accepted norm (i.e. what is taught in school) as wholly proper and and irrevocable. After all, languages are constantly evolving. And probably more quickly than most people would imagine. As recently as the 19th century, well educated people would have wrinkled their noses at the following phrases: "all the time" instead of "always", "born in" vs. "born at", and "lit" as opposed to "lighted". Further, would anyone consider Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Jane Austen poor speakers of the English language? The three may have had a difficult time talking to ach other, yet they are masters of the the same language.

Finally, words evolve out of necessity. Clearly, there is a need in contemporary Enlish for another form of "plural you", or there wouldn't be so many variants popping up among different countries and regions where the language is spoken. If I am addressing one person of a group, but am speaking of the entire group, the plural "you" may be misunderstood as singular. The only thing that is still to be decided, is which of these "improper" forms of slang will be taught to children 150 years from now. My money is on "ya'll".