September 23, 2007
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‘Y’all’
I was just reading an article that indicated that more people are talking with a Southern drawl.
With the spread of the internet and super stars on TV who are from the South, people are beginning to pick up the Southern accent. Here is the link: Link
Do you ever find yourself using some form of Y’all?
Comments (172)
FIRST
Dear lord, no. In fact, I try to avoid it altogether. And I urge others to do so as well.
Haha.
No offense or anything. I just don’t find the accent very nice. Or that word.
Yeah, but I do it in a mocking yet loving way. I know accents aren’t really set to skin color, but when I’m around my friends, a Southern accent doesn’t quite seem righ coming out of a brown kid.
From time to time.
Noppe. I sound terrible when I do it.
Nah. I am so not Southern.
I use y’all. But I don’t have a southern accent.
I guess it’s what I get for living in the south…
Without any doubt the Southern drawl is the best sounding regional speech pattern in the USA.
That said, no I don’t, us folks out here on the west coast have the most neutral and boring sounding speech patterns of them all. We sound like the network nightly new broadcasters. So dull
On occassions
I have, but my accent is too midweast to ever drawl and make it sound good.
only all the time!! but I am from Texas
no.
I use y’all occasionally. Depending on who I am speaking to, “y’all” can be very appropriate.
Not usually…
I haven’t noticed myself saying it; I certainly don’t do it on purpose.
I’ve had a couple people correctly guess that I’m from Michigan, so I guess I don’t sound too Southern.
only very rarely. Hardly at all.
I have used “y’all” since I was in elementary school. One of our neighbors was from South Carolina I think.
All the time.
Of course I do.
I’m from Texas. <3
I’m in the South, so I use it
No, never I’m not from the south so people would find it alarming if I did.
YES! This summer on my missions trip I worked with a few people from Texas. I realized what a convenient word it is and I have been saying it since then. It’s a lot better than saying “you guys” like we do in the Midwest.
In an openly satirical way.
well, see… i live in the south so it inevitably sneaks its way into conversation every once and awhile
Yep…but I’ve lived in Texas for the past few years. I’ve picked up enough of a Southern drawl that my friends and family back home think it’s adorable.
no.. but i find myself using, “you all” o.o
You better believe it
Y’all better believe it sugar pie
Every time I visit my sis near the Texas state line, I come back with a drawl. Media doesn’t affect me so much as living among the natives, I guess.
Hell no!! I’m from Jersey, I say “yo” haha
Listening to too much televangelism from Texas.
I noticed when I joined the Navy, I picked up a bit of a southern sound, some Bostonian, and a western twang. Now I’m back to Philly sound again.
I do like the way Southerners talk though.
sometimes…
I’m going to college down in Tennessee, so I’m surrounded by that word everywhere I go.
I’ve caught myself about to say it before, but fortunately I have always checked myself and said somthing else, like “you guys.”
Well, I’m a southern gal so it is expected of me to use “yall”.. I didn’t even notice it til I went up to north for a visit.. I always use the word yall..
I have used y’all almost my whole life. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t normal until I went to PA on a trip and friends poked fun at me…but then again they say yous all….weird.
i dont think i have a southern accent, but i live there, so i guess i wouldnt know. its not nearly as strong as some, though. and im a proud texan, so i use word y’all all the time. =D
its so much more efficient than ‘you all’ or ‘you guys’ or whatever you northerners say.
I was raised in northern Florida, which some call ‘lower Alabama’, lived for 7 years in Texas, and now live in southern Arizona. I’ve been around southern speak all my life. I don’t think I have an accent with everything I say, but I definitely use some southern words, like y’all.
yes
Actually I have used y’all on occasion, to be cute. I don’t affect a Southern accent though. I don’t particularly like it.
Of course, I’m from NY, so it would be pretentious to affect anything other than a Northeastern or a standard American accent.
Only when I am poking fun at the illiterate.
oh yeah, all the time.
but i probably don’t sound very country when i say it.
Yes, but my family’s from right outside Atlanta…it’s allowed.
No way. I’ve lived in the south almost my entire life, and never, have I once used it seriously.
Never.
Nope .. I can honestly say I never use y’all! I’m a true northerner … I say .. “yo shitheads” … lol!
Hope you are having a great Sunday!
i’ve been using the word ya’ll since i was born maaan. i was raised in texas =)
Yeah, which is weird, considering I’m Puerto Rican. But I am from North Carolina actually… so I don’t know.
I don’t use it, but people in the Northeast do – in a very unsouthern way. It’s usage is affiliated more with the urban, hip-hop culture rather than the southern country one.
Nope.
unfortunately, YES, i do say ya’ll, but i do also live in alabama – though i’m from michigan originally
sure do. i’m a texan.
Only in Spanish, that’s the basic meaning of the word, ‘Ustedes’
you ain’t really southern ‘less ya say “all y’all”
And I’m really southern
I despise that “word,” if we can even call it one.
umm no. i was taught that its a lazy way to talk
Yeah, I use it. When I was seventeen, I spent a few months in California and it broke me of the habit because I became very conscious of it. I did a very good job of not saying y’all for a year or two but then it started to come back and now I say it when I’m at work. And it’s usually only when I am at work when I find myself saying it.
Sometimes during my shift at work they have me greeting customers at the door and when an exceptionally large group of people come in, I just say y’all. Though, since my move to Cali-and-back, I am very conscious of the word, since I do live in Texas, I feel more of an idiot NOT saying y’all than actually saying it.
It doesn’t matter what anyone says really… I just grew up with the word. I have an ambiguous relationship with y’all.
I’m always writing y’all.
yep but i have been doing it for .. 35 yrs since the oil people invaded Singapore
i think it is sooooo much better than that “YOUS” or the “yous people” ewwwwwwwwwww
that some people in NJ seem to think is appropriate ….
SOME PEOPLE ! LOL not all… i hate when people say ” ……. all the people from NJ say…….”
I might have latched on to Vous … but ..French is a dying(dead language) so muchfor the 8 years I invested in that ! LOL
I think a sign the world is growing smaller is an eclectic language
I live in Florida and I say ya’ll all the the time! ;P
I’d get my ghetto pass revoked if I ever did. No. I haven’t.
Only when I’m joking around. I heard once from a southern woman that ‘Southern women do not fart. They sit demurely on a pillow”!
of course, i am from georgia!!! yall come back now ya hear!!
Jokingly, sometimes.
I’m from Texas so I pretty much have to. I like it though.
never. y’all is one of the most annoying words in existence.
y’es and i’m from singapore across half the globe!
NO
I don’t know what it is, but i’ve been using howdy a lot, lately. I cannot break this habit.
I am from Texas, so i say yall all the time – I am more aware of it now but I dont care, its how one talks… i dont tell anyone else how to speak.
I also get people who correct me when I say Houston (you-s-ton), Texas.. they want me to say “Hue-s-ton”. And normally they are not from Houston, so i tell them they are wrong and i will say ithow I say it until i die.. lol
Dqaniel (doubledb)
Hint: I’m from Tennessee. xD
…but I try to avoid ‘ya’ll’. o_O It really irritates me.
Every once in a while I might, but that’s because I go to school in Mississippi. I keep the accent off, though, really well. I HATE southern accents -_- Some are ok or even cute, but then there are those real deep country southern kind, and it’s like scraping fingernails on a chalkboard *shudders*
never.
it’s great to hear more people saying things in southern accent, y’all. first sweet tea and now this. lol
All the time. But then again, I’m from Virginia. Maybe it was inevitable.
Y’all is silly
Y’all is fun
Y’all is flung from the tongue.
I was born in Texas
But haven’t been there in years.
I have hardly said Ya’ll. But I’m sure I haven’t steered from it completely.
All words are good to use. Sometimes.
Except the Lord’s name in vain. That I find is a drain.
I don’t mind so much hearing others speak it, but saying?
Nay.
I do…. but that’s everyone in Richmond Va. We’re the beginning of the south.
of course.. but i’m from Georgia..where it’s always in fashion
) ((this doesn’t mean that we can’t speak proper English, though..we just choose not to most of the time! 
))
NEVERRRRR
Hey (y’all…), It’s not an accent, it’s a dialect.
I don’t talk like that, but I do say y’all sometimes. From time to time in the right situations. I’m in the Midwest, and I find myself saying it when I switch into the Missouri twang I’ve learned from my mom.
Good God, no. It’s funny to read this, though, because I’m actually sitting in the airport in Huntsville, Alabama, on my way back to school after my aunt’s 90th birthday party this weekend. But no. I’m from New York and go to school in Baltimore; no reason for any sort of “ya’ll” to leave this mouth. =)
haha…yeah…when I’m making fun of it!
lol 
err i’ve always say it. but bc of hip-hop influence…not those rednecks.
Every now and then
I have done mission trips to Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi and I listen to Country Western. I was destined to use Y’all. I also say N’awlins instead of New Orleans.
Well, considering the fact that I have lived in Texas my entire life…yeah. I use y’all a LOT. But I don’t have one of those deep Southern drawls…and neither do my friends. That only happens when I go to Kentucky to visit my family…it pops up out of nowhere.
Being from the south, I used to say it all the time. However, when the business I used to work for was bought out by a corporation based in Ohio I found myself consciously changing it to “you guys.”
I live in Texas and use it sometimes.
I’m from Texas. I use the phrase ya’ll every day.
Even when I type I use it.
I don’t think so… We do run ‘How are you together’… HOWYOU… I think it is more northern laziness…
Sure do…. but only when I’m too lazy to spit out the word ‘you’ completely.
I’ve lived in the South. There is nothing as sweet and sensuous sounding as a Southern woman. Southern men sound backwards. Can’t explain it….
I was born and raised in Southern West Virginia. I talk like a mountain woman. So yes I use ya’ll all the time. Those around me notice that when I get pissed off that my “hillbilly” accent gets thicker.
No…I used to live in the South for four years and didnt pick up thier silly accent.
I live in Texas. Of course I use the the word y’all
i’m from southern Louisiana, so it’s somewhat of a conversation staple down here.
-sigh-
When I lived in TX I picked up y’all and other various Texan slang while there but it disappeared as quickly when I left. Nothing in FL the time I was there but now I have moved to TN and it is coming back. Especially if I visit my neighbors who are born and bred here.
I started saying “y’all” a few weeks into my freshman year in college because I went to school in the south. I haven’t stopped yet, and it’s been about 17 years now. (Ouch.) It’s just a very useful contraction.
I say “y’all” sometimes, but I’m from the south (eastern NC). No one in Ohio notices I’m from the south until I say stuff like that (or “Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir”).
being from Texas and all of course…the drawl though usually only comes out when I’m really pissed
Not seriously, no. But sometimes in jest.
Sorry it’s a texan thing. :]]
I’ve lived in Texas all my life, so I use it all the time. I never even knew I was using it untill one of my friends (who was from the north) pointed out that I do. I didn’t even relize it was a southern thing until a couple of nights ago.
never
Ugh yes :[
Heavens no….I just have a boring midwestern Yankee twang, but definitely no Southern expressions.
No, that would not happen. They don’t have that much of influence on me.
I seriously try my hardest to not say y’all… But I’m from Chattanooga, TN….so my accent is pretty heavy….
okay seriously heavy…..
I know that automatically no one takes me seriously as soon as I start talking… however you tend to get away with more when people think you’re dumb…
I’ve been using y’all long before I moved to the south and long before the internet took hold. And I wasn’t raised in a southern household. I just always used it.
In the Northeast instead of ”did you eat” people say “d’jew eat?”.
I try to avoid it — but yes I do!
I’ve been known to slip into a Southern drawl when I’m back in Texas or Arkansas. I worked hard to not develop a heavy Southern accent when we moved to Texas from Denver, but I did pick up y’all (the plural of which, in case you didn’t know, is “all y’all”).
WOW, this is earth shattering shit! And it looks like a bunch of people really put some thought into this, “thats scarey”
always
More often than not, I say “you guys” or “you all”– but not “y’all.”
Southern born and proud of it. I haved moved to the Midwest and lost a lot of my accent but when I am tired, it comes “rite on out, ya hear?”
I do it cause it lets be lazier.
sometimes, when i’m trying to be southern. yee-haw
I don’t because I live in Australia so if I were to say “y’all”, everyone would be asking me what I’m on.
Guilty .. then again I am southern..
All the time!! I think saying “you guys” is so funny!
lmao, im gonna avoid that one.
i say it, but apparently i sound northern. when i moved to NC, everyone called me a yankee… i was like, i’m from mississippi… i don’t think i have an accent.
unless i’m around my mother in law… then you can’t help but talk johnston county… so after she leaves, you go stick your head in the sink filled with water and scream. then it’s gone.
*Jac*
Uh YES I use YA’LL but you are allowed if you live in the South. It would be weird to hear someone from New York say ya’ll. Its much easier to say than ‘You ALL”
I live in texas. what do ya think?
hah.
Are you kidding? I always say y’all. I even use the plural possessive form. Is this y’all’s? (for something that belongs to a group of people)
I’ve lived in Texas for nearly all of my short life, and I absolutely hate the stereotype that comes along with being Southern. My friend and I have removed the word from our vocabulary.
i’ve been a Texan all my life……i have to say y’all.
kudos to you for spelling it correctly.
I was just reminiscing about my grandma. She had hillbilly roots and said “you-uns” instead of “y’all.”
I’m a southern girl! I just am. I don’t use it because other people use it, and I’m sorry if it’s annoying you grammar freaks (I’m actually pretty big on correct grammar usually). “Ya’ll” is perfectly exceptable in society!
– Kare
yup, but I lived in Dallas, TX for 10 years, but I have no drawl
I say it All The Time.
“you all and you guys” take wayyyyy too long to say. Yall is much, much easier.
I’ve always used it, :] I’m Texan.
Which is great, since I’m 18, so the accent’s stuck, basically… and then I go to Seattle and Whitefish [Washington, Montana respectively] and I get asked to say all kinds of words, haha.
Ugh, no. Ya’ll isn’t even a word. I avoid it at all costs.I don’t like Southern accents, anyway. I’m from Delaware. If I started talking with a Southern accent, people would think I’m weird. Well, weirder.
I use y’all all the time. SO much more convenient than “you all” or “you guys” etc. Though since moving from Texas I have noticed that I get more self-conscious of when I do use it. And I actually can’t use it as much here in Europe, b/c even with people who speak English really well you through in a weird word like “y’all” and it confuses them to no end.
As a fun story, I used to work with these guys in CA and they at first made fun of me for using y’all, but a few months later I’d catch them using it fairly often.
Of course, I was born and raised a Georgia girl…
Being from Toronto I have only heard the southern accent on the army radio in Japan. And from Alice who brought grits over from Mississippi. I wonder if more people say Y’all because after all the president is from the south. I way you guys. But often women don’t like you guys and demand an explanation.
i meant to say I SAY you guys. not way sorry.
whaca talkin about? I live in Miami…is that south? or South America? hmm maybe both.
i live in the south and i dont talk like that.
I live in Arkansas…what do you think. I mean what do y’ all think?
I lived in Kentucky near the Tennesse border for 3 years. Yes, I have picked up a drawl, especially when I am tired or angry
Only when I’m making fun of people
What ever happened to using “you”??????
I sure do!!!
Yes and I am Southern. And proud of it.
I picked it up the first year after I moved to Dallas. It’s very handy. “Y’all coming over?” has a kind of ring to it that I like. The funny thing is that is a singular form, when talking usually to one person. If you’re talking to more than one, you add “all” in front of it. “All y’all coming over? I have a keg, and several gallons of sweet tea.”
Instant party.
I’ve tried hard over the last ten years to clear every spec of southern drawl from my speech, but alas when I am tired or not paying attention it rears it ugly head in conversation….
i work in a restaurant that’s real technical and won’t let me use the word “guys” if it’s a guy and a girl. they TOLD me i have to say “thank y’all” if i want to say anything of that nature.
that’s texas for you.
nope, but i’ve said “y’all” for years. Just not with a drawl.
Whenever someone uses obvious southernisms such as y’all, I begin to hum obvious puns on it such as dueling banjos. It’s English, not Innlish. If we can’t even keep our own language together, then how can we oppress those damned Mexicans?
Never. My Michigan accent prevents me from speaking with a Southern drawl .
yeah definately
of course. thanks for using the correct contraction mark y’all
Most definitely. I’ve lived in Texas all 18 and a half years of my life, and “y’all” is something so common to me that I don’t even realize I use it. I mean, come on…. why waste time saying “you all” lol
Only when translating Latin for school. The ending on a word indicate to who the word is directed to. Theres six endings. The one I need to use “y’all” for is “-tis” which means “you all”. After learning Latin, I realized how kooky English is.
No, but I often find myself slipping in british words or pronunciations.
Yes. But I have an excuse. I’ve lived in North Central Florida for 9 years. Plus, I love the word y’all. Have you ever tried saying it? It’s fun. ;)
All the time. Of course, I’ve lived in Texas my entire life. I never thought I had a “Southern drawl” until I went up to Washington D.C. and Maryland, and they said I had the second most pronounced accent there. First place went to a girl from North Carolina.
I also use different formations of the word:
Ya’ll’s
Ya’ll
Ya’ll’ve
etc.
LOL
Since I am from the South, I don’t have an accent. It is all of ya’ll who have an accent.
Wyh sure, honey, y’all couldn’t spect less.
Y’all was what was said when I was brought up.
It pops out occasionally, and I don’t really notice how southern it sounds.
yes, but my dad is from alabama, and i pick it up when i go to visit his family, mostly.
Y’all is in my neck of the woods since forever, so yea, I reckon I do on occasion use that…..
Peace
Unfortunately here in Southern Indiana, it’s unstoppable. I’ve noticed that we probably have the worst grammar here of anywhere. I moved 3 hours North to Lafayette Indiana and people kept asking if I was from Texas.
what’s wrong with a little twang in your talk anyways? i’m a Yankee by blood and birth but being raised in the not-so-southern Tidewater area of Virginia I picked up on it from people in the area. I say ya’ll but not everyday or often for that matter. And if any of you have been near Florence KY, you might be familiar with the Florence Y’all (or mall for those who have no clue)
what’s with the disdain for a southern drawl anyway? we all appreciate the various accents of Europe and foreign cultures, why can’t we appreciate our own?
No. I used to live in NC, but I didn’t pick up any accent. I moved up north though, and now when I hear people with a southern drawl it’s weird. Once I did a quiz on accents and it said I had no accent. That makes me happy.
Fuck no. I speak English.
Y’all can’t fight it.
Hahahaaa, I went on a cruise to the Bahama’s with my hubby about 4 years ago, and being from Oklahoma, I didn’t realise that I said Ya’ll. Until we were setting at a table with a couple from Florida and a couple of bimbo’s from Gosh know’s where, But, I noticed it very fast. I was quite comical to my hubby, He said, wow, You sure got quiet really fast. I told him why after dinner.
I’m Texan, thats not a fair question for me.
Ha! Yeah. But I probably get that from the town I moved to a couple years back…they all talk like backward hillbillies (“y’all ain’t gotta do that there puzzle thing until later…”).
Nope, I don’t try to be something I’m not.