Second person plural pronoun

[payn]

Formal, you folks.
Informal, y'all.

 

[FrogReaver]

In a formal American context (contemporary but educated), when it is necessary to routinely distinguish between singular you and plural you, which pronoun sounds least awkward?

• you ones
• you guys
• you folks
• you lot
• yous


So far I have been using "you ones", and it sounds literary enough. However I also naturally use "one" as a gender neutral pronoun for an unspecified referent. ("One must do this in that kind of situation.") And it ends up being an awful lot of "ones".

By far, "you guys" is the most natural, but it is stigmatically informal, and its implication of male can sometimes be awkward.


If you had to use one of these, which would you use?

Y’all. Us southerners developed a word for just that long ago.

 

[payn]

In my personal experience, "you guys" is pretty informal or childish, even verging on humorous.

Surprisingly common in American interactions, however. Though I have noticed in my lifetime America is becoming an increasingly informal place regardless of the situation.

 

[Yaarel]

Thanks for the posts so far. I hadnt considered "you all" or "yall". In my contexts I dont really come across it. It might work. Heh I actually do come across "you lot" on occasion, but somehow only when people are in trouble. "You ones" seems the most neutral, and shows up in some dialects as "youuns" or "yinz", but as I mentioned I was getting too many "ones". THIQ is precisely what I mean, but I need the pronoun to sound natural. It happens frequently and needs to be as least distracting as possible. I checked the Wikipedia article before coming here. It conveyed a clear sense of the issues, but didnt help me decide which pronoun to go with. I came here because I figured, correctly, the audience here would offer useful comments.

So far, I leaning between "you all" and "you folks". The first is more regional but without contraction seems neutral enough. The second is a more polite version of "you guys".

 

[Chaltab]

Y'all or "you all" would be my choice.

 

[J.Quondam]

Surprisingly common in American interactions, however. Though I have noticed in my lifetime America is becoming an increasingly informal place regardless of the situation.

Yeah, you're right, of course. I just edited my post as you replied. It's definitely a regional thing. I'm from Texas, so "y'all" predominates, while "you guys" is the outlier.

 

[Parmandur]

Linguistic, "y'all"

Formally, "you." Yes, it is awkward and requires context clues, but you is both singular and plural (it is actually the historical second person plural pronoun that killed "Thee/Thou" and replaced it).

 

[Chaltab]

In my personal experience, "you guys" is pretty informal, even verging on humorous.

Definitely. I have a DM who constantly uses 'you guys' when having NPCs address the party regardless of who is speaking and it always sticks out.

 

[aco175]

I would say "All of you", or "Everyone", but sometimes "Y'all" still slips in even after being out of the South for 30 years.

 

[Yaarel]

Y’all. Us southerners developed a word for just that long ago.

I was reading this article.

I didnt realize that "you" originally was plural. The singular used to be "thou"/"thee", and the plural "ye"/"you". But to indicate formality and distance, the plural "you" came to be used as an honorific term of address. Eventually, "you" became universal for both singular and plural. "Thou" and "thee" went extinct except in a few local dialects, despite grammar books spending over a century insisting on them.

Now the same thing is happening with "y'all", in the same way for the same reason. Many people in the South are using "y'all" for the singular when wanting to sound more polite. Heh, so the disambiguated term that sometimes happens for the plural is, "all y'all".