Second person plural pronoun

[Parmandur]

In the phrase, "the seats of you all at the table", I mean, "at that table, those seats which belong to those of you who I am referring to".

You a right, the phrase was more complicated than it appeared at first glance.

It may seem absolutely bonkers coming from a language that has proper singular and plural second person pronouns, and many modern American speakers have changed this in usage...but "formally" singula and plural are simply identical in pronoun usage.

 

[FrogReaver]

"You" as a plural is extremely clear in almost all cases. The edge cases where it isn't are those in which it might be addressed to one person or several and context clues are lacking. "Take your seats" is an example where it is clear from the pluralizing of "seats" that each person is meant to take their own, individual, seat. The only way it might sound ambiguous is if one person owns more than one of the chairs or stools referenced, but even then, it's very clear that the intent is for each person to sit down.

I can't remember the last time "you" (plural) was ambiguous in a conversation I heard. More likely to come up is the question of whether "we" is inclusive or exclusive- "We're going to the store"- does that include the person you're speaking to or not?

You doesn’t ever have a collective use.
Y’all does.

Shopkeeper says to me when I alone stop by, “how are y’all doing”. The question is about me and my family, even though all the direct context would appear to be singular.

IMO, ‘you’ being singular or plural being settled by context was one of the reasons an always plural pronoun was created, so that one could refer to a plural ‘you’ in contexts that a singular would be dictated.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

You doesn’t ever have a collective use.
Y’all does.

Shopkeeper says to me when I alone stop by, “how are y’all doing”. The question is about me and my family, even though all the direct context would appear to be singular.

IMO, ‘you’ being singular or plural being settled by context was one of the reasons an always plural pronoun was created, so that one could refer to a plural ‘you’ in contexts that a singular would be dictated.

Y’all is colloquial and not formal. I thought the OP was looking for a formal way of doing it. It’s also regional. Nobody I know uses y’all for anything except when they’re putting on a southern drawl. I don’t think it is accurate to tell someone unfamiliar with the English language that y’all is a proper form with regular usage.

When I address a class of 60 people to instruct them how to do something, I say,

“First, you take your xyz and do abc. Then, the next thing you do is do blah blah.”

Sometimes, if I want to be specific about something, I might say,

“Make sure you all do abc”

In that circumstance, I’m using ‘all’ to reference each specific person within the group of ‘you’. But it’s probably not a proper way to phrase something, even though people commonly phrase it that way. It would be more accurate to say, “make sure each of you do abc” I say it that way because I don’t want any one person within the group of “you” to forget that one specific thing.

 

[Parmandur]

Y’all is colloquial and not formal. I thought the OP was looking for a formal way of doing it. It’s also regional. Nobody I know uses y’all for anything except when they’re putting on a southern drawl. I don’t think it is accurate to tell someone unfamiliar with the English language that y’all is a proper form with regular usage.

When I address a class of 60 people to instruct them how to do something, I say,

“First, you take your xyz and do abc. Then, the next thing you do is do blah blah.”

Sometimes, if I want to be specific about something, I might say,

“Make sure you all do abc”

In that circumstance, I’m using ‘all’ to reference each specific person within the group of ‘you’. But it’s probably not a proper way to phrase something, even though people commonly phrase it that way. It would be more accurate to say, “make sure each of you do abc” I say it that way because I don’t want any one person within the group of “you” to forget that one specific thing.

Yes, y'all is colloquial and not formal, so for formal usage you are correct.

In terms of real world usage, between Calkfornia and Ohio I have e seen y'all become more and more frequently used by people irregardless of regional accent over my lifetime, at an accelerating rate, too. As some with lhistorical literary and linguistic training, it has been a fascinating "on the ground" example of language shift in the past few decades.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I’m from Ontario and It’s not common. But, to be clear, I don’t have a degree in linguistics nor have I studied regional dialects.

I do have an English degree but I don’t teach English as a language so I’m not really qualified to help break down sentence structure to get to the root of the OP’s problem.

What I do know is if I were to come across a book that used “all y’all” in the dialogue, I would assume it was a southern US or western speaker. If I came across “all y’all” in the body of a paragraph, outside of the actual dialogue, I would find it very strange or some stylistic choice.

If you read any of the pbps on this forum, the only character I can think of who might use the term “y’all” is someone who is playing a cowboy.

 

[Parmandur]

I’m from Ontario and It’s not common. But, to be clear, I don’t have a degree in linguistics nor have I studied regional dialects.

I do have an English degree but I don’t teach English as a language so I’m not really qualified to help break down sentence structure to get to the root of the OP’s problem.

What I do know is if I were to come across a book that used “all y’all” in the dialogue, I would assume it was a southern US or western speaker. If I came across “all y’all” in the body of a paragraph, outside of the actual dialogue, I would find it very strange or some stylistic choice.

If you read any of the pbps on this forum, the only character I can think of who might use the term “y’all” is someone who is playing a cowboy.

Yeah, I can't speak for Ontario, but in reality US it is decreasing regional and more hip.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The thing I find most interesting about “y’all” is it’s a major difference between US and UK English. I hear Americans say it a lot (in real life rather than TV, where it is less common) but it’s completely absent in the UK, despite many other Americanisms being adopted.

 

[Parmandur]

The thing I find most interesting about “y’all” is it’s a major difference between US and UK English. I hear Americans say it a lot (in real life rather than TV, where it is less common) but it’s completely absent in the UK, despite many other Americanisms being adopted.

It is less common on TV than in eversay American usage, because it is "not formal", for sure.

 

[Yaarel]

I am noticing, the choice of the 2p (second person plural) affects the feel of the text.

In places where it is frequent, the term "you guys" seems more intensely masculine with repetition. No pun intended: the repetition "you folks" starts sounding more and more "folksy". The phrase "you ones" gets increasingly distracting, akin to "s/he" or "he or she".

The repetition of "you all" starts to sound more dialectical, in the sense of a conspicuous phrasing. But it seems the least problematic option.

 

[Yaarel]

Yeah, I can't speak for Ontario, but in reality US it is decreasing regional and more hip.

In my experience, the Ontario accent sounds exactly like American neutral, except for the surprising "eu" in "abeut", "eut", "sheut", plus more enunciation ("have you beeen"), and attention to grammar.