# The plural “you”; the formal “you” **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 14, 2019, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108 "2019-03-14T02:05:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/21 "2019-03-15T11:05:02Z")
> [@Garak](#): > > y’all has become singular so now you have to say all y’all for plural Again, never heard a singular “y’all.” Where are you that you’ve heard it? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/22 "2019-03-15T12:30:42Z")
Sometimes the plural is mistaken for the singular by those unfamiliar with “y’all”. F’rinstance, if someone down south asks a northerner “Do y’all have Winn-Dixie up there?”, it doesn’t mean “Do you have a Winn-Dixie up there?”, you being singular, it means “Do you Yankees have Winn-Dixie stores up there?”. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/23 "2019-03-15T14:40:35Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > We all likes yuh just the same. 🆒 Thanks, youse guys! ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/24 "2019-03-15T15:23:05Z")
I think I once read that “y’all” could be singular. For an unambiguous plural one must say “all y’all.” Or was that source just being sarcastic? Thai pronouns get very interesting. My wife has four best friends, all female, all same-age or older, and uses four different words for “you” (with corresponding separate words for “I”) depending on which of them she is talking to! ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/25 "2019-03-15T16:25:58Z")
The Straight Dope has spoken on this… [What do “thou,” “thee,” and “thine” mean, and why don’t we use them anymore?](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1393/what-do-thou-thee-and-thine-mean-and-why-dont-we-use-them-anymore/) ---
**Author:** ![gvntofly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/91b2a8/32.png) [@gvntofly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gvntofly)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/26 "2019-03-16T11:14:50Z")
I hear y’all probably every day, it’s a nice homey word. I love Paula Dean’s y’alls and that Vivian chick from the PBS show set in North Carolina she has a great y’all too. I have heard you’ins before. ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/27 "2019-03-16T12:03:45Z")
I used the live the west of Ireland where you’d hear “ye” as the plural of you. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/28 "2019-03-16T13:45:56Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > I hear “Y’all” often enough. And of course most of the time it is used as second person _singular_. > > E.g., the clerk at the store: “Did y’all find everything you need.” And I’m the only other person around. > > So it’s more of a “second person faux-familiar” usage. > > Plus it’s also used as a general filler word such as “like” is used by some. Paula Deen did this a lot on her cooking shows. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Curious where you are that y’all is ever singular. I’ve lived most of my life in North Carolina, and when I hear strange things like this I get sensitized to them (“literally” makes me twitch these days no matter how it’s used), and I’ve never heard a singular “y’all,” much less heard the word as a filler. I’ve heard both of these. Yes, the store clerk situation “did y’all find everything?” when there’s no second person being addressed. The “filler” y’all, if I recall correctly, this is my impression … She’d open her patter with something like “y’all … y’all … okay,” sometimes over applause, sometimes just as a kickoff for what she was going to say next. Or she’d just generally pepper a sentence with “y’all.” The “y’all” didn’t necessarily have any grammatical function other than as filler. > [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > I’ve been learning basic Hindi, for no particularly good reason. Like a lot of languages, it has a singular form and a plural form for “you” depending on how many people you are talking about. It also uses the “plural you” when talking about single people to show respect. But then it also has “an intimate you” that is less formal than the “informal you”. Bengali has a very interesting pronoun system. In the second person, there are formal, informal, and very informal. (And no re-using plural forms for these.) In the third person there is not only familiarity but also proximity—this guy here, that guy here, that guy way over there. And none of it is gendered. Yay! ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/29 "2019-03-16T14:59:10Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I’ve heard both of these. Yes, the store clerk situation “did y’all find everything?” when there’s no second person being addressed. That’s the most ambiguous use of “second person” I’ve ever read :). But okay, I can imagine it happening rarely. I’d almost categorize it as a mistake, and I wonder if you’d been able to interrogate the clerk on their grammatical choices (obviously an asshole move which is why you didn’t do it, but if you could’ve), if they’d’ve stood by their use of “y’all” or would’ve thought “you” would’ve been more appropriate. > [@](#): > > The “filler” y’all, if I recall correctly, this is my impression … She’d open her patter with something like “y’all … y’all … okay,” sometimes over applause, sometimes just as a kickoff for what she was going to say next. Or she’d just generally pepper a sentence with “y’all.” The “y’all” didn’t necessarily have any grammatical function other than as filler. Hmm. I think of filler as words like “uh,” and “like,” and “hmm,” things put there to give the speaker a moment to think. “Y’all” used in this context would be like, “Friends” or “You guys”: not a filler so much as a quick attention-getter, reminding the audience they’re being addressed and trying to regain their focus. Admittedly it’s a fine hair I’m splitting here. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/30 "2019-03-16T16:16:20Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > That’s the most ambiguous use of “second person” I’ve ever read :). > > But okay, I can imagine it happening rarely. I’d almost categorize it as a mistake, and I wonder if you’d been able to interrogate the clerk on their grammatical choices (obviously an asshole move which is why you didn’t do it, but if you could’ve), if they’d’ve stood by their use of “y’all” or would’ve thought “you” would’ve been more appropriate. I’ve heard it a lot, possibly more than “proper” use to address multiple people. > [@](#): > > Hmm. I think of filler as words like “uh,” and “like,” and “hmm,” things put there to give the speaker a moment to think. “Y’all” used in this context would be like, “Friends” or “You guys”: not a filler so much as a quick attention-getter, reminding the audience they’re being addressed and trying to regain their focus. Admittedly it’s a fine hair I’m splitting here. It is a fine hair, but there’s a point at which you’re saying “guys” so much that it’s possibly serving pretty much the same fuller function as “like” or, perhaps, a closer comparison is “I mean” as a filler. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/31 "2019-03-16T20:08:11Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I’ve heard it a lot, possibly more than “proper” use to address multiple people. Very interesting. Where are you that you’ve heard it? Again, I don’t remember ever having heard it, and I tend to be sensitive to this sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2019, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/32 "2019-03-17T17:46:57Z")
It seems to me that the most obvious explanation is that _ **y’all** _ is going through the same kind of change that _ **you** _ went through. At one time _ **you** _ was only plural, and marked deference, but eventually came to be used as singular, too, and unmarked. So the store clerk is using the normally plural _ **y’all** _ when addressing a lone customer to show some deference or respect (not informality, as suggested above). This was how _ **you** _ eventually became singular, too. As for “fillers”? People don’t just make sounds for the hell of it, or because they’re somehow “inarticulate.” “Fillers” normally serve functions, such as turn-holding, or expressing affect. Some people use them more than others, but that doesn’t mean they’re just emitting random sounds for no reason. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2019, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108/33 "2019-03-17T18:50:45Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Where are you that you’ve heard it? Again, I don’t remember ever having heard it, and I tend to be sensitive to this sort of thing. The Army so geographically I can’t help you much. There was an instructor long ago that specified at the start of his class that y’all was singular and all y’all was plural in his usage. He specified where he was from at the time. Part of me wants to say Alabama or Mississippi but who knows almost three decades later. I’ve also experienced people that used y’all pretty consistently as both the singular and plural. I can’t tell you with any detail where any of them were from. There’s real variation IME from the common you-y’all combination, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-plural-you-the-formal-you/831108.md?page=1)