What Is This Y'all Thing, Anyway?

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you-all (yˇ´ôl´) also y'all (yôl) pronoun
Chiefly Southern U.S.
You. Used in addressing two or more people or referring to two or more people, one of whom is addressed.

Regional Note: The single most famous feature of southern United States dialects is the pronoun you-all, probably heard more often in its variant y'all. You and you-all preserve the singular/plural distinction that English used to have in thou/you. You-all functions with perfect grammatical regularity as a second person plural pronoun, taking its own possessive you-all's (or less frequently, your-all's, where both parts of the word are inflected for possession): You-all's voices sound alike. Southerners do not, as is sometimes believed, use you-all or y'all for both singular and plural you. A single person may only be addressed as you-all if the speaker implies in the reference other persons not present: Did you-all [you and others] have dinner yet?

Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

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