If anyone can find more pixels for me i would appreciate it.
Thanks y’all.
“Y’all” has wider reach than this map suggests, particularly in black and queer communities.
Youse LOL, almost lost it when I heard it one time
Where’s my fellow "yo’d’ll"s at
Your what now
People where I am from call everyone “you guys” - men, women, trans, doesn’t matter, everyone is just “you guys” even when it’s a woman addressing a group of women.
The literal meaning isn’t gender neutral, but in actual practice, it 100% is.
As for “y’all” or “you all”, I don’t see how it could possibly be interpreted as offensive to any gender.
“You People” is the one to be avoided
“howdy fuckers” is the opposite as it sounds bad on paper but in practice it goes over well (except with middle aged moms)
“G’day cunts” goes over either extremely well or extremely poorly, with no in-between
Yeah I don’t see that one going over well anywhere
The literal meaning isn’t gender neutral, but in actual practice, it 100% is.
Unless you can ask a straight man how many guys he’s slept with, it isn’t gender neutral, no matter how resistant to this fact you are.
I don’t see the issue with using the term “guys” in the plural when referring to a group regardless of sex. That would align with the definition of the word. I’m pretty sure that’s how they meant it.
As for “y’all” or “you all”, I don’t see how it could possibly be interpreted as offensive to any gender.
I think “we don’t take kindly to y’all” to a trans person would likely be offensive. Beyond that though, you’re probably okay.
I mean … Thats just an all out threat with y’all acting as an exclusionary statement.
All in all agree with your point tho.
I’m from “you guys” but I’ve lived in “y’all” and now I’m forever team “y’all,” regardless of where I’m living.
It’s the best export from the south, except maybe Texas brisket and pecan pie.
…y’all roughly correlates with coke, although there are some deep pockets of soda-water in the back country…
I mean, neither “you” nor “all” is a gendered term in any way
“y’all” fills a legitimately useful gap the English language has. Other languages have a word like this.
Edit: also something cool I just found out, some languages have a way to disinguish “we” (you and I), and “we” (me and the rest of us, not you). It’s called clusivity and is missing from European languages. Many indigenous languages of the Americas and Oceania have this, as well as Vietnamese and northern dialects of Mandarin.
English used to be like other European languages too. We had thou/thee for singular, and you/ye for plural, and for respectful singular. Eventually, people began using it as respectful singular for everyone, and so it just became singular and plural, eclipsing thou/thee. Around this time, the you/ye accusative/nominative distinction was also lost, so now we just have you.
If you’re curious, the you/ye distinction worked like this: “you” was used for the subject (the doer) of the sentence, and “ye” was used for the object (the done to). you/ye are analogous to I/me.
“You come with me.” (plural you)
“I come with ye.” (plural ye)
As a result of the loss of thou, we also lost the conjugation of verbs related to it, like “art” instead of “are”, and “-st” or “-est” for other verbs (“goest”, “thinkst”, etc). It used to be that “are” was only for plural pronouns, but now both “you” and “they” can be singular.
And if you’re curious about what happened to “-eth”, evidence suggests this was for a long time a typographic feature, and it was pronounced “-s” as it is today. It was used exactly like “-s”. “He thinketh” would have been pronounced “he thinks”.
Not a gap in every dialect! “Ye” is another plural second person used in Ireland
Hear y’all hear y’all, Reggie King from o’er the holler brought pawpaw moonshine for the weddin’
The worst is when a language formally has a disambiguating word but then speakers all just decide to not use it.
Any examples of an equivalent in other languages?
I speak a small amount of French but can’t think of one
“Vous” is the first one that comes to mind in french. But since it is also a more formal (and/or “respectful”) version of “tu/toi”, it can both designate a group of people or a single person, depending on the context (just like “you” in English). Sometimes people will use “vous tous” (literally “you all”) to make this clear.
It is a little better than the “you” situation in English since if you are speaking with someone that is not using the singular form of “vous” to speak about you (which is basically anyone you are familiar with unless they are your boss or In-laws and kind of oldschool), it is instantly clear what they mean at least.
In Portuguese (especially Brazilian), there are singular and plural forms of “you”: “você” (singular) and “vocês” (plural). In English, “you” behaves like a plural because it’s followed by “are” instead of “is”. The only exception I can see is “yourself” and “yourselves” that refer to both singular and plural forms.
However, In Portuguese, even though we have “vocês” as plural form, we also use “vocês todos” or “todos vocês” (“you all”/“all of you”) sometimes.
Spanish has “Ustedes” (except in Spain, they use “Vosotros/Vosotras”)
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Y’all is the opposite of offensive for trans people. I lived in the south for a while, and I now use y’all specifically to be inclusive. I wouldn’t say “you guys” is offensive to trans women, but I would say for me and likely other trans women it briefly brings to mind being misgendered in the past, so I would call it a small kindness to ube as gender neutral as possible.
Yup, I specifically use y’all and recommend it to people (like my parents) to replace gendered phrases, and I’m not from the y’all zone.
Still up for debate, “dude” and “hun/hon”.
*I’m a trans woman also
As a cis male, I’ve exclusively been called “Hun / Hon” by waitresses and gay men.
I’ve not been offended by any of them.
Thanks comrade
Maine I think loops back around to y’all territory…
As someone that grew up in y’all territory in Kansas, it’s wildly easy to connect to people from Maine!
My boss says “you’ll”
Y’all reminds me of the bible belt. I’m not transgender but I am queer and now and then it makes me uncomfortable.
Queer people who live in the bible belt still say “y’all”. It literally means “you all”.
Guess I’ll have to ask the person I’m addressing in the future.
Thanks comrade.
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I would have thought that “y’all” is even more so gender neutral and therefore less offensive/more accepted. It’s a contraction of “you all” right?
Yeah, I’m in the “you guys” zone and I say y’all, it’s always better received.
Y’all has become my goto nowadays, up in the northeast
The y’all zone is all zones apparently.
Honestly it’s just so useful. It should be the default.
I picked it up when I lived in Houston, but when I was bartending and stuff after returning to my home state, I’d use it heavily.
Interestingly, though, it made people think I was from another country entirely? Because in absolutely no other way do I sound even remotely southern. (I do use various non-American slang, but not with strangers) Was always a blast to have someone ask where I was from, and try to get them to pinpoint why they didn’t think I was local, when I was born 15 minutes from where the conversation was taking place :p
You forgot “Yinz”
Yinz goin aht n abaht in dahntahn Picksburgh to watch da Stillers game?
Yinz is definitely a Scots thing
That’s actually “you’uns” and despite being from the deep south I barely ever heard it growing up. Guessing you are from the south too
Yinz is a Pittsburgh and Pennsyltucky thing
Genuine question. What is the “tucky” in pennsyltucky? Is it somehow tied to Kentucky?
Yeah, it’s the area south of Pittsburgh near WV, why is it called Pennsyltucky instead of Pennsylvirginia? No idea.
But, it’s more of a “here be hillbillies” thing, especially when compared to the rest of the state.Kentucky = Hicks
I was editing an Irish comedy recently which used “yinz” and “yiz” a lot.
Wow, this is news to me. How does a new word get the s to change to a z like that??
