We never used it that way, always as a contraction of you all (plural).
This. My cite is Juanita, the waitress at the Waffle House in Ocala, FL, to the couple who just came in: “Y’all sit over here in my section. I haven’t seen your kids in forever. How all y’all doing?”
For a board like this, it is baffling on this insistence on this completely non-existent thing.
I see the singular more than the plural form. E.g., I’m checking out at a store and the clerk asks me “Did y’all find what you needed?” A waitperson asks “Can I get y’all anything else”? Etc.
It’s just me there. That, my friends, is a singular. No way around it.
Apparently some people consider it more “folksy” and friendlier to say “y’all” rather than “you”.
And it happens over and over and over.
I’m not from the south, but hear the singular y’all all the time when I’m there. It appears to have escaped from the lab into the wild.
I believe that is the best explanation.
A guy who ran a fishing campground on the White River, Cotter in North Arkansas used “You uns” to refer to a group.
Some of the English dialects spoken in the Ozarks are more similar to Appalachian English than they are Southern English.
Re: Singular Y’all
I’ve lived in the South nearly my entire life. North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and often visited the other states. In the early 70’s, it had to be pointed out to me that Y’all was sometimes used in the singular, as it seemed so natural to me that I didn’t even notice.
Correction, what is often called “Singular Y’all” is really “Indefinite Y’all.” That is, it [del]is[/del] was used in situations where, while the speaker may not know whether he is speaking of a single subject or multiple subjects. More often than not, as a way of being polite, or, more accurately, not to be insulting. For example, if talking to an individual, you wouldn’t say “Hey, are ya going to see that new movie?” unless your intent was to invite that individual to go to the movies. What you would say is “Hey, are y’all going to see that new movie?” as implying someone would go see a movie alone would be considered rude. By using Y’all, it is clear you are not asking for a date, but you aren’t being insulting, either. In the South, phrasing things in ways that can be insulting or put the other one in an awkward situation is considered very rude and is just not done (unless your intent is, in fact, to be rude).
Another oft-cited example is going to a restaurant, where the receptionist might ask “Do Y’all need a table?”, even if you are alone. While many people do dine alone in restaurants, it would be considered rude to imply that a customer couldn’t find anyone to dine with. While “Do you need a table?” certainly works for a group of people, in most parts of the South, it wouldn’t be used in this situation unless the receptionist was specifically addressing the host, as “Do you need a table (for your party?).”
In the past 20-30 years, the use of Y’all has expanded greatly, particularly among people trying to sound folksy or genuine. I blame Jeff Foxworthy, but it probably has as much or more to do with people having more mobility than in the past. A transplant moves to Atlanta from, say Columbus, OH, and hears y’all being used in the singular as described above. Being from, essentially, a hick town, said transplant thinks he understands the dialect, but doesn’t understand the situations where the use of the indefinite y’all is appropriate. Jack, from Dayton, OH meets up with the transplant and is told that y’all can be singular. So it spreads.
As far a y’all vs. all y’all, that’s mostly a Jeff Foxworthy thing, but he didn’t just make it up. A teacher might come back into an elementary school classroom where the students are acting up, laughing, screaming, and running around, and say to the class “Y’all need to take your seats and calm down! Right now!” The teacher is saying the class, as a whole, needs to behave, leaving the possibility that some of the students may be behaving appropriately even though the teacher was gone. If, however, the teacher says “All y’all need to stop talking, take your seats, and put your heads on your desk,” then every student in the room had better change their behavior and put head on desk until the teacher says something else.
Now, the South is not a monolithic bloc, and usage and can vary a lot between, say, Raleigh and Slidell, but the underlying driving force is not to be rude and to be completely understood.
And, sorry to break this to you , Beck, but Arkansas is not considered to be the South by people who don’t live in Arkansas.
In my second cite above, there are various theories for what the “singular y’all” represents, and one of them does gibe with the “politeness” theory you posit:
From this link.
I think “y’all” is useful. Even though I’m a yankee and don’t use it frequently (“you guys” is probably used more). “You” just doesn’t cut it when addressing multiple people.
All y’all just seems completely unnecessary.