[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).