Listen Up, Y'all

My parents are not from Texas and although they’ve now lived here for over 30 years, they refuse to acclimate. And when I say “acclimate” I mean they won’t use the word “y’all.” In fact, when I—a native Texan—started incorporating the common contraction into everyday speak, they scolded me. And when I started using it in my writing, well they were down-right horrified: “You’re writing it now?” they exclaimed.

Try as they may, it’s a big part of my vocabulary and there’s no gettin’ rid of it. I’m quite fond of it. It’s got two advantages over “you guys:”

It’s shorter.
It’s not gender-specific so no one gets offended.

Oh, and I just thought of a third: If you say it right, you sound like a Southern belle. (Say it wrong and you just sound like a hick.)

I remember in the sorority house we sometimes felt the need to make it redundant: “Y’all ALL need to pay for your t-shirts. I mean it. Y’all ALL are gonna be on probation and you can’t go to the Spring Casual if you don’t. And you know y’all ALL don’t wanna miss it.”

So I embrace the word and I encourage others to do the same. But here’s my PSA to all of the y’all users out there:

LEARN HOW TO SPELL IT!

I swear, this has to be up there with “definitely” in how often it gets misspelled.

It’s a contraction for “you all” so it’s spelled “y’all.”

Yet 99% of people spell it like this: “ya’ll.” What’s that? That doesn’t even make sense!

I ask in the name of all things good and Southern that you please stop violating my beloved phrase this way. If you’re gonna write it (even though my parents won’t approve), you must at least spell it correctly.

So there you go. I just wanted to share that little lesson. I hope y’all ALL (and even you guys) found it useful.