Attention All American Southerners - Assistance in the Book Club Department, please!

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Okay, so I brought up what I find to be a curious error in Stephen King's, Under The Dome, and I need some Southern-style back up (or smackdown, if I'm wrong.)

It's from this post, but here's the pertinent part -

But then there's this -

"Kid, listen to me. Y'all drop down on your knees and--"

and

"Kid? Would y'all stop doing that? It's driving me bugshit."

and

"Why y'all doin' it?" the Army guy asked.

and

"Why don't y'all quit it on the rocks and do somethin about those cows?"



Now in each case above, it's one guy (from the South) outside the Dome speaking to a kid, all by himself, on the inside of the Dome. I know that Maine is very far away from the South, but regardless of where you are and assuming you've ever spoken to an American Southerner or seen a film depiction of one, I'm still guessing you can see what the trouble is with his usage of "y'all". It's just weird to me that no one in the process didn't say, "Um, Steve, 'y'all' is a collective. You don't address or instruct one person as 'y'all'." "Y'all" is completely interchangeable with its Northern idiomatic equivalent "you guys." So, if you were telling one kid to stop throwing rocks against the Dome, you'd never say, "Why don't you guys quit it on the rocks and do somethin' about those cows?"

Odd. Odd, odd, odd. Perhaps when you're as big as Stephen King, you don't get edited.
So, in the American South, is "y'all" ever used to address or instruct one person? My experience of nearly forty years below the Mason-Dixon line tells me no, but I'll admit I'm a pretty Yank-ified Southerner.
 

Chris P

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"Y'all" can be singular or plural, even though logic says it's plural. For real (or, "f'reel" as they say here).

All y'all = all of you
Y'all're = you are
Y'all'll = you will
Y'all's = singular or plural possessive

F'reel

EDIT: Granted, these might be Mississippiisms. The Carolinas and Virginia have more east coast than Southern accents.
 
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alleycat

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Not normally, but people sometimes intentionally adopt a sort of overdone way of using slang, much the same way a drawn-out drawl is sometimes used.

King seems to like using over-the-top southern dialect anyway.
 

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So you would address one person as 'y'all'?
"Y'all" can be singular or plural, even though logic says it's plural. For real (or, "f'reel" as they say here).

All y'all = all of you
Y'all're = you are
Y'all'll = you will
Y'all's = singular or plural possessive

F'reel

EDIT: Granted, these might be Mississippiisms. The Carolinas and Virginia have more east coast than Southern accents.
 

rhymegirl

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"Y'all" can be singular or plural, even though logic says it's plural. For real (or, "f'reel" as they say here).

All y'all = all of you
Y'all're = you are
Y'all'll = you will
Y'all's = singular or plural possessive

F'reel

EDIT: Granted, these might be Mississippiisms. The Carolinas and Virginia have more east coast than Southern accents.

Thank you.
 

backslashbaby

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No!!!!!! Never, ever, ever. Silliest thing I've ever heard. Y'all is totally plural -- "all y'all" even more so :D

But I hear they do it wrong in Texas. Mississippi, too? Oh, my.
 

Wayne K

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The wife says "Y'all" is plural. She's from Georgia. It's plural for "You all."
 

Chris P

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So you would address one person as 'y'all'?

It's not always done, but people do it. As a Yankee myself it confused me and doesn't make logical sense, but there it is. And it's not a racial expression, either. Both blacks and whites use it in this way.
 

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No!!!!!! Never, ever, ever. Silliest thing I've ever heard. Y'all is totally plural -- "all y'all" even more so :D

But I hear they do it wrong in Texas. Mississippi, too? Oh, my.

I know. It's so strange. Not even in a film full of Steel Magnolias and Bull Durhams have I ever heard one person addressed as "y'all".

And I've lived in Texas and I've never heard it. Also in Louisiana. Never heard it there either.
 

NeuroFizz

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Agree with the pleural usage (even though I've been in NC for a little over five years). My little born-in-Arizona daughter let loose with a string of y'alls when she was playing in the snow with friends yesterday. Cute to the extreme, but in pleural context. It may depend on regional speakisms and education level. King may be over-doing it and misusing it in this case, though. Bless his heart...
 

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It's not always done, but people do it. As a Yankee myself it confused me and doesn't make logical sense, but there it is.

Oh god. You're a Yankee. (Not that I mind, it just doesn't give the credibility to the answer that it could. Your Yank ears may have misheard. ;) )

So we have North Carolina and Tennessee weighing in as no, it's not done that way. Here on my end, I've also secured South Carolina and Virginia.

It read as S. King making a giant, silly leap to make us think "cracker" when we saw Private Ames' in the book.
 

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My Texas family uses y'all as a multi-case singular or plural pronoun.
 

Chris P

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I know. It's so strange. Not even in a film full of Steel Magnolias and Bull Durhams have I ever heard one person addressed as "y'all".

And I've lived in Texas and I've never heard it. Also in Louisiana. Never heard it there either.

I wouldn't go with Steel Magnolias as a yardstick. Not all Southern accents are the same, and each actress uses a different one. Jessica Simpson's coon-a** cajun accent in Dukes of Hazard should be a punishable offense for a movie set in Georgia.
 

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Just as an aside, we have a terrific Indian restaurant here in Asheville and its tee-shirts say,


"Namaste, y'all"


lol! I need one of those.
 

alleycat

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I know. It's so strange. Not even in a film full of Steel Magnolias and Bull Durhams have I ever heard one person addressed as "y'all".

And I've lived in Texas and I've never heard it. Also in Louisiana. Never heard it there either.
It wouldn't normally be used where I live either (excepted in the way I mentioned earlier; that is, intentionally misused).
 

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There's a controversy about this, says Wikipedia.

Ahhhh. So, here it is then. Sometimes Wikipedia is helpful -

Controversy

There is also a long-standing disagreement about whether y'all can have primarily singular reference. While y'all is generally held in the Southern United States to be usable only as the plural form of "you," a scant but vocal minority (for example, Eric Hyman<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-4">[5]</sup>, and most notably Seamus Riley<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-5">[6]</sup> argue that the term can be used in the singular as well. Adding confusion to this issue is that observers attempting to judge usage may witness a single person addressed as y'all if the speaker implies in the reference other persons not present: "Have y'all [you and others] had dinner yet?" (to which the answer would be, "Yes, we have", by a single person acting as spokesman for the group.)
H.L. Mencken recognized that y'all or you-all will usually have a plural reference, but acknowledged singular reference use has been observed. He stated, appropriate use
is a cardinal article of faith in the South. ... Nevertheless, it has been questioned very often, and with a considerable showing of evidence. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, to be sure, you-all indicates a plural, implicit if not explicit, and thus means, when addressed to a single person, 'you and your folks' or the like, but the hundredth time it is impossible to discover any such extension of meaning.
– <cite>H.L. Mencken,The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, 1948, p.337</cite>​
 

Chris P

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Oh god. You're a Yankee. (Not that I mind, it just doesn't give the credibility to the answer that it could. Your Yank ears may have misheard. ;) )

People use it in this way. Sorry.

Not everyone does, though, and there is no socio-cultural reason for it that I can see. Certain people of all income levels, education and race use it. Those people who do use it use it consistently.

Just as an aside, we have a terrific Indian restaurant here in Asheville and its tee-shirts say,


"Namaste, y'all"

Asheville rocks!

In this case, y'all is used for emphasis.