# Y'all vs You Guys **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 29, 2000, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626 "2000-02-29T17:28:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Wage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Wage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wage)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2000, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626/41 "2000-03-03T03:06:00Z")
> [@](#): > > In fact, I still maintain -as I suggested in an earlier thread- that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would have spoken with southern accents. Um…no offense, but wouldn’t Washington and Jefferson spoken with more or less British Accents? Perhaps slightly modified, yes, but still… And here in Michigan suburbs, we have no direct “y’all” or “y’uns” type quote, we mainly say “you” or even just “everybody”, altough occasionally we let a y’all slip by. ---
**Author:** ![Jois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@Jois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jois)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2000, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626/42 "2000-03-03T07:57:00Z")
You could call Mt Vernon and ask them how Washington and Jefferson sounded. You don’t have to believe or like the answer but you’ll get an answer. * * * Are you driving with your eyes open or are you using The Force? - A. Foley ---
**Author:** ![upstatic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ce73a5/32.png) [@upstatic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/upstatic)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2000, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626/43 "2000-03-03T09:59:00Z")
Y’all for one and one for y’all! That’s the southern twist. * * * R.J.D. ---
**Author:** ![upstatic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ce73a5/32.png) [@upstatic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/upstatic)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2000, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626/44 "2000-03-03T10:02:00Z")
Y’all need to say “you guys” 1 hundred times a day until you lose that slang. * * * R.J.D. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2000, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626/45 "2000-03-03T15:03:00Z")
**Wage** wrote: > [@](#): > > Um…no offense, but wouldn’t Washington and Jefferson spoken with more or less British Accents? Perhaps slightly modified, yes, but still… No offense taken, Wage. The point I made in the earlier thread was that by the time of the Revolution, southern colonists had been here for nearly 200 years. (Jamestown, Virginia founded in first decade of the 1600’s.) All of the conditions which would give rise to the Southern accent were present during that time (isolation on plantations, exposure to African influence, isolation from the mother tongue- no TV or movies, remember). We also know (from soldiers’ letters home - written with phonic spellings) that by the time of the Civil War (four score and seven years after the Revolution) the accent seems to have been fully developed. So what’s easier to believe: that the accent developed in the nearly 200 years between colonization and the Revolution, or that it magically appeared in the 80 odd years between the Revolution and the Civil war? Sorry for the hijack, **y’all**. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2000, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626/46 "2000-03-03T15:07:00Z")
“phonic” should be “phonetic”. (Sorry --I am hooked on neither). ---
**Author:** ![upstatic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ce73a5/32.png) [@upstatic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/upstatic)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2000, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626/47 "2000-03-04T19:58:00Z")
Y’all v. You all will never be a “Great Debate.” * * * R.J.D. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2000, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626/48 "2000-03-04T20:01:00Z")
[Arms akimbo…] Oh, _yes_ it will! ---
**Author:** ![Wage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Wage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wage)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2000, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626/49 "2000-03-05T01:14:00Z")
I still think they would have retained somewhat British Accents (Washington and Jefferson and them all) in the 1770’s. Sure, there had been colonists there for a long time, but was that where they were from? Plus, I always thought Washington was British anyways, seeing as he was almost in the British army, but just wouldn’t accept the status of the equivalent of “Private”. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2000, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626/50 "2000-03-06T16:45:00Z")
Guadere wrote: > [@](#): > > You may tend to assume “you guys” implicitly refers to men since you _are_ male. If you were female and had often been part of a group that was referred to as “you guys”, you would likely see it as gender-neutral. I think the real reason is that I didn’t hear “you guys” at all when I was learning to speak. Anytime I heard the word “guy”, it was sex-specific. Nowadays, this might be hard to imagine, what with TV homogenizing our culture, but I was born in 1961, and growing up in the woods of East Texas I didn’t meet any yankees. Our only TV was a little black-and-white box that got only one channel, so we didn’t watch it much. We upgraded to color and got more channels in the 70’s. It seems to me that the influence of TV is a major factor in how a kid sees the world. I think I was at the tail end of a generation that could still be culturally isolated. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2000, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626/51 "2000-03-06T20:16:00Z")
Wage wrote: > [@](#): > > I still think they would have retained somewhat British Accents (Washington and Jefferson and them all) in the 1770’s. Sure, there had been colonists there for a long time, but was that where they were from? Short answer: Yes. Both Washington and Jefferson were born and raised on plantations in Virginia. They were “British” in the sense that they were British subjects until the time of the Revolution. That does not automatically mean that they spoke with what we would (today) consider a “British” accent. Please give the **reasons** you are so convinced that southern colonists, who had been in Virginia for over 160 years, would still retain a British accent. (Again, my apologies for the hijack. If debate continues, I’ll open a separate thread.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yall-vs-you-guys/17626.md?page=2)