Second person plural pronoun

[Tonguez]

It has become pretty standard in most of America in recent years.

that's great to hear, y'all make my linguaphile heart pleased

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Try  "You people" Really emphasize the you to make it extra aggressive.

Words of wisdom from Don Cherry.

@Yaarel can you please give some context to how you want to use it?

In most situations, you can just use ‘you’.

In a situation where you are addressing a group, you can just say, “ you should do xyz”, you don’t have to say, “you folks should do xyz”. You can, of course, but it’s just more words.

I really can’t think of a situation where you would use “you guys” or “you folks” or “you all” and not just, instead, say “you”

“You ones” is definitely not a correct usage and sounds like it would only be used by someone who is not a native English speaker.

Y’all, like all contractions, is less formal.

 

[Tonguez]

Y’all, like all contractions, is less formal.

Y'all should be reclaimed and celebrated as a fully functional American plural pronoun neologism

 

[not-so-newguy]

@TaranTheWanderer I just looked that up.
Yeah, something offensive always follows 'you people...'

 

[Yaarel]

Y'all's in regular spech. Your in formal writing or address (for the record, I have a Bachelors on English Language & Literature, and actually read the style guides, so that is "proper English" as opposed to the way contemporary people are speaking).

It is tempting to use "yall" and "yalls".

For the possessive form I am going with "of you all".

"The seats of you all at the table."

 

[Yaarel]

"You ones" is the strangest sounding, most not-English formulation of the plural you.

There are reallife examples of "you ones" in use in various American dialects: you-uns, youuns, y'uns, yinz. It is a normal phrase to say ... heh, even if it appears to be difficult to pronounce.

 

[Yaarel]

It occurs to me looking at the contractions for "you ones": youuns and y'uns.

A gender neutral pronoun might be "the one": th'un, thun.


[Edit]: In the 1800s, the contraction "thon" saw some use as a gender neutral pronoun.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is tempting to use "yall" and "yalls".

For the possessive form I am going with "of you all".

"The seats of you all at the table."

That sounds pretty stilted to me as an American English speaker. “Your seats” or “all of your seats” sounds much more natural.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

@Yaarel this spee h from Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar, with Marc Antony addressing the crowd with second personal plural pronouns (emphasia added), is instructive to "formal" usage:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!

What, that wasn't in the original text?

 

[Parmandur]

Note that these are both “you all.” Your point that “you” can be plural as well as singular is correct, but this does also illustrate that sometimes it can be stylistically preferable to clarify its plurality.

It is "you all" not "y'all", it is an emphatic like "all y'all" not a plural marker. But it does does thst "y'all" is a quite organic development!