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Friday, February 24, 2006

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.

5 comments:

Liz said...

I am so happy about this blog!! "Ya'll" is one of my top most-hated thing to see written. Others at the top are when people don't know the difference between "you're" and "your" (I have seen a TON of that lately which KILLS ME) and when people put commas before "and" and their last list item. Thanks and have a nice day. :)

Jessi said...

I totally agree with y'all. I love it because my accent isn't as strong as it was, but y'all is still around.

Thanks for the PSA.

Writinggal said...

Actually, Lizzie, that whole comma before "and" is optional. I do prefer it sans comma though. And even I, Writinggal, screw up "you're" and "your" but just by accident!

Liz said...

Oh Frank... you are funny. Yes, I know the comma is optional... it just hurts my heart a little.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for helping the world with the spelling of this word!! It drives me crazy. I don't even understand how people put the apostrophe in the wrong place - there isn't an "a" anywhere in the word YOU. How can people be so confused? (but I confess to constantly spelling definitely wrong - I had to check your blog just now)