Andronormativity

[andrewducker]

If I was checking that two males friends were coming over soon I'd say "You guys coming over soon." - and I went to say something like this on IM to Morag (about her and Erin coming over for BSG) and paused, unsure what the right thing to say was when talking to two female friends...
[Poll #1329081]

Comments

Re: black american english has a solution!

[moniqueleigh]

Y'all is pretty much standard Southern American English, actually. There's some credence to be given to a theory that it actually came from the Scots-Irish phrase "ye aw" (or you all), especially considering exactly how many Southern Americans are of mixed Scots-Irish descent. Including myself. :)

Re: black american english has a solution!

[akicif.livejournal.com]

More believable if Scots-Irish (aka how folk speak in Norn Iron and/or "Ulster Scots") actually used that construction....

Re: black american english has a solution!

[moniqueleigh]

I'm sure folk in that area probably don't use the construction anymore. 'Tis a sometimes wonderful & often aggravating thing how the language changes for all areas.

Anyway, the theory is most put forward by linguist Michael Montgomery, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English and Linguistics at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, whose evidence includes a letter written in 1737 by an Irish immigrant in New York to a friend back home. This construction eventually would be Americanized (or possibly one could say "Southernized" or "drawled"?) into "y'all."

Considering the "lazy speech" of my fellow Southerners, I can see an easy progression here: "ye aw" becomes "y'aw" which then becomes "y'all" as it gets drawn out further. I suspect Southern Americans are one of the few breeds of English-speakers that can make a one syllable word last 15 syllables (& turn three syllables into two, at best). *chuckles*

Re: black american english has a solution!

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Fair enough: I shouldn't have assumed current usage was being implied. And "aw" also matches with Scots "a'" as an abbreviation for "all", too....