[untothebreach]

My wife talks this way all the time, and when we were first dating it really bothered me. Eventually I came across an explanation of the regional-ness of it on the internet somewhere, and I asked her if any of her family is from the Pittsburgh area. As far as she knows, they aren't, but they are from Columbus, OH, which is just down the highway a bit.

I heard that Pittsburgh-ians also tend to use "yinz" for the second-person plural, which I find much better than a plain "you," and much, much better than "You all" or "y'all". (Though I'm now told it is not as commonly used as I assumed it was)

Anyway, I love reading about the various ways american english has diverged, given time and distance.

[eximius]

It's "y'all", a contraction of "you all", not "ya'll". Which makes infinitely more sense than "yinz" which is apparently derived from "you ones" or something like that?

I also find that 'dropping of to be' sounds completely unnatural to me. It sounds like something I'd expect a non-native speaker to say.

My personal favorite English change is the cot-caught merger.

Of course, all of my preferences make sense because I grew up internationally or in the south - I wasn't caught up in the cot-caught merger and I picked up y'all because there has to be SOME second person plural!

[yellowapple]

> I picked up y'all because there has to be SOME second person plural!

Same here. Way more elegant solution than "you guys", and less jarring to most people than, say, "youse". The only better solution would be to bring back "thou" for the singular and make "you" plural, but alas, that's unlikely to happen (and I'd be the one using "thou" and "y'all" anyway).

Of course, there are the folks who treat "y'all" as a singular second person pronoun and use "all y'all" for the plural; I've worked with quite a few of those folks.

[tempestn]

> Of course, there are the folks who treat "y'all" as a singular second person pronoun and use "all y'all" for the plural; I've worked with quite a few of those folks.

Presumably for the same reason that 'you' migrated from plural to singular in the first place. (Initially as a sign of respect/politeness/formality, then gradually becoming universal.) Perhaps someday we'll see "all y'all all"...

[baldeagle]

I use y'all for the second person plural and all y'all to when referring to multiple groups. For example: Team A will go to the left, team B will go to the right and then all y'all will charge the center on my mark.

[yellowapple]

I dig it; it's like "persons" v. "people" v. "peoples".

[mirimir]

Yes, this is how I learned it from imps.

[spc476]

I remember reading somewhere that there is a difference in meaning between "y'all" and "all y'all":

1) Do y'all have a ride? 2) Do all y'all have a ride?

In one of them (and I don't recall which definition is which) the meaning is "Do each of you own a car?" and the other one is "Do each of you have a car you can ride in?"

[throwawaysocks]

My understanding:

1 = "do all of you have a ride (perhaps shared)?"

2 = "do each of you have your own ride?"

So if Bob, Jim, and Jane are all riding in Bob's car then "y'all have a ride". But if all three of them have their own car, then "all y'all have a ride".

ymmv.

[untothebreach]

Thanks for pointing out my "y'all" typo -- fixed. I just don't like the way "y'all" rolls off the tongue, and never enjoyed using it. But, as you say, there has to be SOME second person plural. I just like the way "yinz" sounds, I guess. /shrug

[jeremyswank]

Actually, 'you' is the second person plural in English. If you want a singular, you'll need to recover 'thou' from history's dumpster.

[nothrabannosir]

It was. Language evolves.

[cam_l]

If you want to be different you could always try out the Aussie version.. 'youse'

[smcl]

Oh that's cool, I didn't know it was in use outside Scotland. I'd always pegged yous/youse as a Scots thing

[GeneralTspoon]

In Ireland, a lot of people people use 'ye' as the second person plural. Mostly in areas outside of Dublin.

In Dublin, the slang variant is either 'yiz' or 'yous'

[tankenmate]

Yous or youse is the naive synthetic pluralisation of the singular you (in the analytical form both are you).

[exception_e]

Another one is "yunz". People don't really use "yinz" and "yunz" too often though :(

[untothebreach]

Really? That's disappointing. I'm going to edit my post a bit bc apparently I've been misled :-/

[blatherard]

Actually, you'll hear plenty of "yinz" in the greater Pittsburgh area, but more often in the outlying rural areas surrounding the city.

[dgacmu]

Concur. It's not quite as widespread - what I've seen is that even quite a few non-natives tend to adopt "needs washed" after living in the region for long enough, but I don't hear yinz used unconsciously from people not born in the region. But there's plenty of yinz - and the city embraces its yinz-ness.

[lowmagnet]

I always heard it round dahntahn. Norseide and Souside, mostly. In the Nordills, it wasn't as common, but my gramma sed things like worsh and spigot but she grew up dahn Etna an aht.

Goodness that was hard to type.

[exception_e]

People will use it jokingly though :)

"Are yunz gonna eat lunch n'at?"

[moron4hire]

My home town takes a lot of its accent from Baltimore, though it's still over two hours away. I never got used to saying "you'ns". There is a definite glottal stop in the middle. Annoying.

[brandonmenc]

"Yinz" is equivalent to "yous" - which is supposedly a Philadelphia thing - but everyone up in Erie prefers it to "yinz."

"Yinz" is very, very localized.

[jemfinch]

FWIW, I was raised in Cincinnati and spent almost a decade in Columbus, and "needs fooed" sounds perfectly normal to me, too.

[TheCondor]

Yinz is more flexible. Like it is used to address a singular person: "hey, yinz" or a group: "what are yinz guys doing?"

It's much more of a novelty until you hear it a lot, and then you start to hate it. "Yinz guys" sounds particularly offensive to my ear for some reason

[choosername]

i like the. aussi's yous