Southern Living magazine once described “y’all” as “the quintessential Southern pronoun.” It’s as iconically Southern as sweet tea and grits.
Although “y’all” is considered slang, it is still a useful word. The English language does not have a good second-person plural; ‘you’ can be either singular or plural, but it is sometimes difficult to use as a plural. It’s almost like a pronoun is missing. “You guys” fill in the second person plural, as do “you guys,” “you guys,” “you-uns” and a few others.
I’m interested in “y’all” because I was born in North Carolina and grew up saying it. I still do that, probably a few dozen times a day, usually without intention or even awareness. As a historian who has researched the early history of the word, I am also interested in how the word’s usage has changed over the years.
Like something a hillbilly redneck would say
“All of you” can serve an important function, but it has taken on a negative connotation.
In 1886, The New York Times published a piece entitled “Odd Southernisms,” which described “all of you” as “one of the most ridiculous of all Southernisms.”
That perception has persisted. Like the Southern dialect in general, the use of “y’all” is often seen as vulgar, low class, uncivilized, and uneducated. As someone noted in Urban Dictionary: “Whoever uses it [y’all] sounds like a hillbilly redneck.
In a more recent essay in the New York Times, writer Maud Newton said she associated the word with her father, who “defended slavery, demanded the submission of women, and adhered to ‘spare the rod and spoil the child.’” He demanded that too. his children say ‘all of you’ instead of ‘you’. She grew up hating the word.
At a time when many Americans are calling for the removal of Confederate monuments and opposing the Lost Cause mythology, “y’all” with its Confederate overtones may make some people uneasy—a misguided response perhaps, but one felt by both those those who hear it as those who say it.
Imagine ‘all of you’ with a British accent
The word hasn’t always had such a negative connotation.
The etymology of “you” is obscure. Some linguists trace it back to the Scots-Irish expression “ye aw”; others suggest an African American origin, perhaps from the Igbo word for “you,” transmitted by Nigerian-born slaves. According to the “Oxford English Dictionary,” the word first appeared in print in 1856, and all examples of it are sources associated with the American South. Michael Montgomery, a noted linguist, said the early use of the word is “unknown in the British Isles.”
But recently I used some of the new digital literary databases to search for older uses of the word, and I found more than a dozen examples. They were all in dramatic or poetic works dating from the 17th century and published in London. The first ‘you’ I came across was in William Lisle’s ‘The Faire Æthiopian’, published in 1631 – ‘and you all know this to be true.’
My examples take “all of you” back 225 years before the citation in the “Oxford English Dictionary,” and they show that the word first appeared in England, not the United States.
I think it is important to point out that it originated in a more formal context than is often assumed. There is no mention of the class or cultural connotations of the later American examples.
I should also note that there is a gap of almost a century between the last known use of this British version of “you” and the first known use of the American version. Scholars may well conclude that these versions of “all of you” are essentially two different words.
Yet there it is, in an English poem from 1631.
‘You all mean’
Ironically, while some people shy away from using “all of you,” the word seems to have increased in popularity. An article on exactly this subject, published in the Journal of English Linguistics in 2000, was entitled “The Nationalization of a Southernism”; Based on scholarly polling, the authors suggested that “all of you” will soon be seen as an American, rather than a Southern, word.
There could be several reasons for this. One is that African American use of the word in music and other forms of popular culture has made it more familiar – and therefore more acceptable – to those who did not grow up with it.
Second, “you guys,” another common alternative to the second-person plural, is losing support because of its sexist connotations. Do you include women? What about those who identify as non-binary?
Maud Newton finally came to hug “all of you.” When she moved to Tallahassee, Florida, after law school, she discovered that “in grocery stores and coffee shops, on the street and in the library, everyone – black and white, gay and straight, working class and rich – were all using you, and soon I was also.
“You all mean” – that’s a beautiful phrase that seems to be popping up everywhere, from T-shirts and book titles to memes and music. A song written by Miranda Lambert for Netflix’s “Queer Eye” beautifully captures the spirit of the phrase:
You can be born in Tyler, Texas, Raised with the Bible Belt; If you’re torn between the Y’s and X’s, You ain’t gotta play with the hand you’re dealt ... Honey, y’all means all. This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit organization providing facts and trusted analysis to help you understand our complex world. It was written by: David B. Parker, Kennesaw State University
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David B. Parker does not work for, consult with, own stock in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.