And this is all ridiculous, if difficult to change. As for pronunciation: that first letter is pronounced with something dental (like a “t” or “th” or “d,” dental meaning a consonant that’s made with the tongue pressing against the teeth) followed by a high-back vowel (high-back referring to the position of the tongue within the mouth, like “oh” or “ooh” or “uh”). The stereotype is that we say "youse guys," but you'll hear just "youse" more. The phrase "youse guys" may be popular in Philly, but here's an argument to trade it for a gentler version of "you all": y'all. A small North Carolina island shows how different the Southern accent can be. Talking to your spouse? All we know is that “thou” rapidly disappeared. Informal You. " Yous guys keep your mouths shut." The two possible ancestors of y’all are the Scots-Irish ye aw, which means “you all,” and the West African/Caribbean you all (a calque, or borrowed word, from England), which means, as you might expect, “you all.” Because these two phrases are basically the same, and because something was needed to fill that gap, and because both the Scots-Irish and the newly dumped African slaves both lived in the same region, eventually the two phrases were combined and shortened. If you remember your classroom French, you’ll remember the formal/informal pronouns: tu is informal, vous is formal. It’s been suggested by some linguists that “you-all,” “you-uns” (a Pittsburgh expression) and “yous” or “youse” actually originated as attempts to differentiate plural “you” from singular “you.”. Lewis Hines Wickes’ photograph of students in class in Boston, 1909. “We all aspire to ‘you,’” says Malton. To learn more or withdraw consent, please visit our cookie policy. Oh well. This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 23rd, 2019 at 1:29 pm and is filed under Inspiration , Just For Fun . Used in addressing two or more people. In dialogue, most of the forms of “you” that are addressed to plural auditors by working-class speakers are written as “yez.”]. Y’all, You’uns, Yinz, Youse: How Regional Dialects Are Fixing Standard English. A: You may have too much time on your hands, but there are worse things to do with it than think about the language! Another reader has e-mailed us about the same thing, suggesting that there’s a connection between Irish immigration patters and the use of “youse” in this country: “The use of the word ‘youse’ as a plural of ‘you’ is almost universal amongst the people of Derry,” she writes. But as Malton notes, this is really all just a guess; it’s not that clear that Shakespeare’s dialogue was really (or even meant to be) an accurate depiction of the way people really talked. They’re good words. A possible name change, for yous guys up North, Aboriginal or First Nations? The formal/informal thing is also why “thou” makes so many appearances in the King James Bible, as in “thou shalt not (do anything).” “When you’re talking to God you want it to be this intimate thing, so that’s why the authors of the King James Bible used thou,” says Reed. pron. As the previously plural, formal “ye” became the universal “you,” English speakers worldwide became aware pretty quickly that losing a singular/plural distinction is…bad. Partly that’s due to stigmatization of the groups that created them. Help support the Grammarphobia Blog with your donation. Flickr / Steve Eng. Because of that rising influence of French, English began to show some formal/informal divide as well. I therefore think that “yous” is almost a kind of creole for Italian-Americans rather than a sign that we have a strong aptitude for being a loan shark. In English we express the plural of “you” with “you two” or “you three” or, in Katie Couric’s case, “you all.” But in Latin languages it is expressed with one word that, literally translated would be “yous” (for example: vous in French or vosotros in Spanish). Introducing: The Atlas Obscura Book Club With Literati, Meet the Experimental Violinist Forging Her Own Path, How a Blacksmith in Jordan Created His Own Sign Language, In Naples, Praying With Skulls Is an Ancient Tradition. English parliament established November 5 … Thou became informal, and ye became formal. But as gender norms evolve, the usefulness and appropriateness of you guys comes into question. Yous guys is a northeast phrase (often used by jersey girls and long islanders) meaning you guys. Which brings us to the most popular and worst plural form: “you guys.” This solution has so, so many faults. The dual form was lost by the twelfth century, and the singular form was lost by the early 1600s. “They filled the gap that standard language, however we want to define it, left. Regional dialects around the world have filled in the gaps, with y’all and youse and yinz and you lot, but due to the weird tyranny of standardized language, these aren’t seen as clever solutions to a problem we all face: they’re seen as wrong. Offer subject to change without notice. Old English’s nominative second person—nominative refers to the subject, like the “you” that is doing something—is þū. Y’all is not wrong or dumb; it’s a solution to a problem endemic to the “correct” dialect. ; “There’s always the underlying thought that something from the South might be somewhat lesser, or something from African-Americans might be somewhat lesser, because of the history of our nation,” says Reed. It's the Philadelphia slang version of "y'all," and once you start saying it, it becomes a habit. You guys Pronoun. Like us on Facebook to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. (Photo: A sign in Orlando, Florida, using the plural “y’all.” (Photo: The Unverifiable Legend of the Early 20th-Century Preacher Who Raised 14 People from the Dead, For Sale: The First Printing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner', America's 'Diner Man' Is Donating His Life’s Work to the Henry Ford Museum, How American Gunboat Diplomacy Helped Democratize Japanese Shaved Ice, Why President Coolidge Never Ate His Thanksgiving Raccoon, Why Northerners Think All Southerners Have One Accent, Folger Shakespeare Library/cropped/CC BY-SA 4.0. All rights reserved. [Notes: Another reader wrote on April 19, 2018, to comment that Irish has a plural form of “you”: sibh (plural of tú). Lewis Hines Wickes’ photograph of students in class in Boston, 1909. Within a couple of centuries, the dominant singular version of “you” was “thou,” and the plural was “ye.” Those each had their own families of related pronouns, like “thy” and “thine” and, interestingly, “you” and “your.” (The former is singular, the latter plural. The term guy is generally restricted to males, as in Was that a guy or a girl?, but the form you guys may be used for groups of any combination of genders whether it is all male, all female or any combination. Its provenance is unclear, but certainly it comes from the American South. The same thing colors our national reaction to you’uns (it comes from poor rural areas), youse (poor urban areas) and yinz (Pittsburgh). "Eh, maybe later I'll meet up with yous guys." Eventually, in England, “guy” … Re: Yous guys wanna talk about second person plurals in here? When are youse guys coming over for a session by Scoundrel July 13, 2004 In “standard American English,” meaning, essentially, schoolroom English, the second person pronoun is “you,” for either singular or plural. Follow us on social media to add even more wonder to your day. Uncle Sam wants you - singular or plural, because in English there is no distinction in the pronoun "you". Also, people don’t use it much in the surrounding area.” We replied that Pat was currently reading a mid-19th-century novel by the Irish writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu, set in a rural village just outside Dublin. (Photo: Folger Shakespeare Library/cropped/CC BY-SA 4.0). That dual form vanished, and the singular and plural forms changed. And check out our books about the English language. "Search Ends When Sharing Starts" If you already know the meaning of you guys in English or in any other language, Please contribute that will helpful for other users, also you can edit any data like gender, pronunciation and origin to improve accuracy. It’s “you guys” that’s the problem. This phrase has the bonus Wisconsin trait of referring to ourselves as part of a sports team. Hence: y’all. That just screams ‘fix this,’” says Paul Reed, a linguist at the University of South Carolina who, as a native Southern linguist, spends a lot of time thinking about the second-person plural pronoun. No purchase necessary. One show of force had a cooling effect on Japanese summers. Arriving early and calling ahead to make sure the bread has not run out are recommended, since it is flying out the door as fast as we can bake it. Australian slang generally used to address more than one person. Elsewhere in the English-speaking world, solutions vary. (First person is “I,” second person is “you,” third person is “he/she”.) ], Q: As a native New Yorker of Italian-American descent, I have always been plagued by the term “yous.” I stopped using it many years ago during my freshman year at college when a dorm mate from Beacon Hill grabbed me by both shoulders and shook me vigorously while proclaiming, “ ‘Yous’ is not a word, God-dammit!”. Q: As a native New Yorker of Italian-American descent, I have always been plagued by the term “yous.” I stopped using it many years ago during my freshman year at college when a dorm mate from Beacon Hill grabbed me by both shoulders and shook me vigorously while proclaiming, “ ‘Yous’ is not a word, God-dammit!” Does this theory make sense or is my wife correct when she tells me I have much too much time on my hands? you guys synonyms, you guys pronunciation, you guys translation, English dictionary definition of you guys. Please click below to consent to the use of this technology while browsing our site. Use…well, also use “you.” It is a huge, strange weakness in American English: when someone is talking to a group of people, we have no way of indicating whether the speaker is talking to only one person or the entire group. Though Quakers are stereotyped for their use of “plain speak,” which is said to include words like “thou” and “thee,” theoretically helping them to distinguish between singular and plural, in fact very few Quakers still actually use these words. Define you guys. As you say, modern English, unlike some other languages, has only one form of “you” for both singular and plural. This reinforces the notion that the use of “youse” and such forms has a connection with Irish immigration. Yous Guys Sandwich Shop 827 Folly Rd James Island SC 29412 Open 10-7 Tue-Sun Skip the wait… Call in Your Order & Help us help you faster! Both are enhanced by our superior nasal inflection. I’ve accepted this but, in the interest of regaining some dignity, I do have a theory about its origins. (The word “guy” in English seems to originate from the Gunpowder Plot, a failed assassination attempt, and one of its plotters, Guy Fawkes. Reed grew up using “you’uns,” common in Appalachia, is a slight shortening of the Scottish “you ones.” “Ones,” in some forms of Scottish English, is a plural marker, like the American “guys,” so you can say “you ones” or “we ones.”. We Cater Any Event, Just Ask Us! We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the world’s hidden wonders. Enter your email address to subscribe to the blog by email. You can start with “Ya know” to show that you’re about to share a thought. At least (presumably) this preoccupation keeps you off the streets. If you remember your high school linguistics, you might also remember that this pronoun would be the second-person plural. You comes from the Proto-Germanic demonstrative base * juz -, * iwwiz from PIE * yu - (second person plural pronoun). Afloat the Erie Canal: A Self-Led Houseboat Adventure, Science in the Field: Tracking Wild Bumblebees in Sequoia, Rewilding: Tracking Wolves in the Forests of Sweden, Lisbon: Tracing the Roots of an Imperial Cuisine, Monster of the Month with Colin Dickey: Lake Monsters, Depicting Lockpicking in Popular Media With Schuyler Towne, Making the Miraculous Cake of the Patron Saint of Bakers, How Flanders Made Navigating a Cycling Paradise as Easy as Memorizing a Phone Number. The origin of “guy” is traced to Guy Fawkes who became infamous when he was arrested for trying to assassinate King James I in 1605. Tip of the hardhat to yous guys. Atlas Obscura and our trusted partners use technology such as cookies on our website to personalise ads, support social media features, and analyse our traffic. In the south they say "y'all." The general belief is that this change came from the French, thanks to the Norman Invasion: French has and had a firm formal/informal divide in its pronouns. In case others don't click through to the Macquarie Dictionary article, it has an interesting discussion of the origin of … So keep visiting again . Use “you.” Talking to your spouse and his or her entire family, at the same time? For plural, the Old English version of “you” was gē, pronounced something like “yih.” And the dual form, which was completely thrown in the garbage by the transition to Middle English, was git, pronounced like “yit.”, Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, heavy influence from French speakers began to quickly change the nature of English, marking the move to Middle English. “They also use the word ‘youse-uns,’ as an emphatic form, with remarkable frequency.”. As CNN writers, David G. Allan and Kristen Rogers highlight, "The researchers found children who felt connected to nature-feeling pleasure when seeing wildflowers and animals, hearing sounds of nature-engaged in altruism, or actions that helped other people.". A celebration of freedom, published next to advertisements for the slave trade. Sign up for our newsletter and enter to win the second edition of our book. By the beginning of the 18th century, “thou” began exiting the language completely. “Y’all” is easily the most famous solution. 9. The extra 's' is not silent and is added for no reason whatsoever. The term actually comes from Guy Fawkes, a 17th-century participant in the failed 1605 Gunpowder Plot (and the inspiration behind those creepy, mustachioed, "V … The need for a pronoun to directly refer to a group of people is not a small one, or one that can simply be brushed aside; this is one of the most basic elements of language. ), The first page of the Peterborough Chronicle, one of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, originally written in Old English which did have singular and plural distinctions for “you”. All the guys.” It’s informal in a way that feels, in many situations, entirely too casual. Sara Malton, a professor at Canada’s Saint Mary’s University, has a great essay on the strange transition in pronouns from Old to Middle to Modern English. There’s also the potential that the existence of the colonies, with suddenly possible upward social mobility, left little desire to use any informal pronoun at all. Yous guys is a northeast phrase (often used by [jersey girls] and [long islanders]) meaning you guys. Nobody exactly knows why, but scholars have focused on the mid-17th century work of Shakespeare to help tell us how people were talking to each other and what pronouns they were using. Hey, y’all, it’s time to talk about you guys. I like that the Constitution, which is law, can evolve and mean whatever, but the meaning of friends saying "you guys" is ironclad. (Photo: A sign using “Yinz”, a version of the plural pronoun found in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. ‘No wonder youse boys are always rioting;’ ‘I hope youse guys like it.’ ‘Mark Adams writes with a favor to ask youse guys.’ ‘Blessing on all youse guys and please pray for me.’ Yinz, like y’all, has become a sort of emblem of the area from which it comes; Pittsburgh residents sometimes refer to themselves as Yinzers, to honor the unique pronoun native to their fine city. We don’t mean you specifically … but the term itself. “Where-a-bouts are yous guys from?” 6. Grammar, etymology, usage, and more, brought to you by Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window). In explaining the possible Irish origins of “yous,” Crozier says the usage “seems to have arisen when speakers of Irish switched to English,” mostly in the 19th century, and “felt a need for a plural second person pronoun like Irish sibh.” But “yous” has been used in … The extra 's' is not silent and is added for no reason whatsoever. (This wasn’t always the case, as we’ve written before.) We can see that this might be a natural response on the part of immigrants (and not just Italians) whose first languages had both singular and plural forms. Who are you talking to, exactly? But we also don’t really have much better data, so. If you're from Philadelphia, you've probably spent most of your Sundays rooting for the Iggles. Using it as a linguistic source has its difficulties! A tradition as American as apple pie, and older than the Constitution. People say that in Coventry (UK) a lot. Eventually, in England, “guy” came to refer to the effigies burned in remembrance on Guy Fawkes Night, and eventually to any male. And the word “you” needs to be plural. © 2021 Atlas Obscura. And their language can be considered richer from that viewpoint.” Y’all is a beautiful word. “Why would we have one word for something as fundamental as singular and plural? Say “ya know” to start and end thoughts. See. How did such an amateur linguistic fix become a pillar of everyday speech? Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. “People that we would consider non-mainstream speakers kind of led the way,” says Reed. So, I don’t know, add an “s” to it. Yous(e) as a plural is found mainly in (Northern) England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, northern Nova Scotia, parts of Ontario in Canada and parts of the northeastern United States (especially areas like Boston where there was historically Irish immigration) and in Mexican-American communities in the southwest. For years, the phrase you guys has been employed as a useful workaround when addressing a mixed-gender group. Maybe the speakers are perceived as dumb or uneducated. There's a few great Wisconsinisms to unpack here, but the main one is "yous guys" or just the shortened "yous." When referring to a group, say “yous guys.” For example,you may use these words to ask where someone is from. (843) 779-0145. A simpler version comes from the other side of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, and has also bled up to parts of New York City: “youse.” This is an understandable creation: you normally add the letter “s” to things to make them plural, right? Standard English doesn’t have a singular/plural distinction, and this is what’s taught in schools, drilled into our heads through newscasters and books and media. to get this name's meaning and other information. A 1903 performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which contains use of an informal pronoun. (Photo: Sage Ross/CC BY-SA 2.0). Thou and ye is a perfectly fine arrangement of second-person pronouns, and we’d all be better off if they’d stuck around, but they didn’t. The effigies were paraded through the … History of Indian Motorcycle - Historical Timeline from 1900 1897: A Legend is Born Creating a Company In 1897, George M. Hendee founded a bicycle production company called the Hendee Manufacturing Company. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-DIG-nclc-04529). Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) June 11, … New York is a city of immigrants who, like my grandparents, may have learned the English language but may have also retained some of the grammar of the home country. (The word “guy” in English seems to originate from the Gunpowder Plot, a failed assassination attempt, and one of its plotters, Guy Fawkes. “Ye” stuck around, but changed slightly to become “you.” Nobody really knows how this happened; it’s possible that nobody really wanted to use any noun that was associated with the informal lower classes, and it’s possible that the colonization of North America, and subsequent desire for separation from England, led new Americans to spurn these social hierarchy language formations. “As is often the case in Middle English, English speakers like to say, ‘we have the French to blame,’” says Malton. You’ve heard the solutions: y’all, youse, you guys, yinz, you’uns. And a reader in Britain wrote on April 18, 2021, with this comment: “ ‘Youse’ might definitely be linked to Irish immigration. “You, uh…guys. Winner will be selected at random on 06/01/2021. Eat In, Take Out, or Phone Orders. If you are an old subscriber and not getting posts, please subscribe again. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. The basic history is thus: Old English, which would sound to modern ears more like German than English, did in fact have singular/plural distinctions. These are widely seen as incorrect, or nonstandard. In England, the most popular version is “you lot,” essentially the English version of the American “you guys,” and just as awkward. Incorrect. But that’s really all just guesswork based on how stuff turned out. “Ye,” somehow, actually persists in some parts of Ireland, as well as in the strangely cockney dialect of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. 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