How about “I am Newly Zealous?”
5 Likes
No, this is actual regional usage. See: Texas.
You won’t find it in a dictionary or textbook, but for the language is a living thing camp, this is 100% real.
@pillbox is probably close enough to encounter this somewhat regularly. Don’t we have someone in Arkansas as well? @gmwhite?
Huh. I had no idea about this. My wife grew up maybe 10 minutes from there and we drive by it all the time on the way to the grandparents.
Up the 295, across the 195, and then cut up toward Freehold (and the Freehold Raceway).
3 Likes
Kansas City itself doesn’t have a high incidence level of y’all, but certainly the rural areas around here do. It’s absolutely come out of my mouth in non-ironic contexts. And nobody in the area would likely find someone saying y’all to be unusual or quirky… unless you really leaned into a hillbilly accent.
I’d second that “y’all” could be singular or, less often, plural, but “all y’all” would definitely be plural… or… sometimes, simply the case where you’d use the term along the same lines as the “accusatory we” construct.
6 Likes
Don’t forget you can add emphasis to the plural with “all y’all’s.”
Like, “I’m talking to all y’alls”
edit: as a boy from San Diego, I can attest. At first it’s funny. And then you start saying it to be funny. And then you start saying it for real. And then you can’t stop.
Though with our clientele here I’m chuckling a bit about some bloke turning to his singular spouse and saying, in the Queen’s English, “Y’all want a spot of tea?”
6 Likes
I use y’all often and only to mean plural. I use all y’all rarely. The most common is if talking to a large group and saying something like “I need some of y’all to do A and some of y’all to do B. After that, I’ll need all y’all to do C.”
For reference:
I was born and raised in Kansas but frequently visited grandparents and cousins living in middle of nowhere west Texas and used y’all as a kid which was seen as highly unusual in Kansas.
I moved to Texas when I was 15 and lived there for 8 years: the last two years of high school (Houston suburb) and six years of college for BA and MA (in San Antonio). Y’all is highly common in Texas.
I have lived in Virginia ever since and my y’all use is unusual but not as unusual as it was in Kansas in the 80s and 90s.
9 Likes
As an Arkansan who uses y’all often and deliberately in a professional context with rural clients, y’all is plural. In “all y’all” all is an adjective intensifier to add clarity that there are no exceptions intended from a usually imperative use of y’all.
5 Likes
I am very confused by the idea of referring to a single person as “you all”. I can only assume that, at that point, “y’all” has ceased to be a contraction, and is being treated as a new word with its own meaning.
4 Likes
Yes, as a Brit hearing only Americans use it, I always understood y’all to be “you all” and only ever plural.
3 Likes
Not unrelated to y’all/all y’all, there is ‘youse’ in parts of northern England (and Scotland?) as a plural ‘you.’
5 Likes
Definitely Scotland. What are youse doing? Youse are all a bunch of ….
Edit: I am available to provide the service of cursing in Scottish for any of your weddings, bar mitzvahs and funerals.
12 Likes
Can you also do the traditional staggering about with a can of lager? It’s a lost art…
5 Likes
Hell yeah. I can even do ‘my shirt comes half untucked, but not in a cool way’.
And Irn Bru the next morning
7 Likes
And the “five ands in a row” degenerate case…
(To a sign painter: “You’re got the spacing between ‘Fish’ and ‘and’, and ‘and’ and ‘Chips’, uneven.”)
8 Likes
I’ve had people “correct” mirror translations that resulted in “at at least five locations” or similar before now. Had to explain that just because the grammar checker underlines it in red…
8 Likes
For an insight into the British psyche: a reddit rabbit hole lead me to this research for Ofcom into public attitudes towards offensive language on TV/radio. I even learned some new words!
(I’m sure I don’t need to warn anyone, but the link takes you to some very rude words. Stop at page 15 if you want to giggle at some British swearing but would prefer not to read any slurs).
4 Likes
I suppose it has to be written down somewhere if we’re going to have clear standards. What a concise document!
1 Like
I especially like how every table has a warning that it contains language that the reader may find offensive, just in case you missed the title page 
3 Likes
The late John Grant pointed out how ridiculous it was to try to ban specific phrases when, in The Truth About the Flaming Ghoulies (1984). he had characters saying things like “I Heseltined everywhere” and “I think I must have picked up a nasty dose of the Reagan”.
2 Likes
Every time @yashima writes “Luffy” I read it as, well, Luffy, and have to remind myself that it’s the character ルフィ (rufi, somewhat like roofy).
2 Likes