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Comment by mcpackieh | Hacker News Reader

> "P.S. I'd love to discuss this with y'all like professional adults. Can we do that?"

You can tell somebody is a snake when they aren't from the South but use "y'all". It's become a sort of corporate snake shibboleth.

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Uhhh, what?

I use y'all 'cus that's how all the kids in my school talked growing up.

I ditched a lot of the lexicon because after my family moved to the suburbs, I got made fun of by my new friends, literally calling me "less white". So no more finna', for example.

I will die on the hill of having a good second person plural pronoun though.

Once you've used English with a second person plural pronoun, you can't go back.

PS: "Yous guys" doesn't count

"y'all" is a bit fraught in the US because (incorrectly, in my opinion), in some parts the use is associated with certain unflattering cultural stereotypes. Not usually racial ones.

> I will die on the hill of having a good second person plural pronoun though.

I'm with you there -- we really need one, but I haven't found one that is broadly safe to use.

If you actually grew up using it, then you're not who I'm talking about. The word, like "folks", has become part of the affected dialect used by corporate ass-kissers to tell other corporate ass-kissers what they're about. Used primarily by slimy management, HR and PR types.

These types do not say finna, that isn't part of this affected dialect. If you say finna then you're not who I'm talking about.

…Okay, again, I really need/want there to be a gender-neutral plural familiarism like "guys", though, and "folks" fits great....

Here in the rural parts of Ontario (well not in my rural part of Ontario, but further north), that pronoun is "youse"

As a long boy visiting from Alberta I was astounded that this existed.

It might be dying out tho

Exists in Australia, has connotations of rural government (un)education, youse can rip it from my cold dead hands because plural second person is fabulous.

> I's the by that build the boat.

> You's the by that sail 'er.

— Wait, that's singular.... I think? Does it change again when you go further east? ....Or actually, is the second line also "I"?

My take is that "uneducated" people with "undisciplined" language spontaneously create their own plural second person pronouns wherever they go because, well, the language has needed them ever since they were lost from Anglo-Saxon ("ge", pronounced "ye").

I vote we just bring back this "ye" and make it official.

Ah, indeed. The plague of prescriptivism, as a gross exclusionary method of filtering social status, holding us back…

I certainly think that a lot but I sure as hell wouldn’t say it. It doesn’t help, that discussion never goes well.

Meh, it spreads a lot more broadly than the corporate snake people. And honestly I’ve never heard the corporate snakes use it myself (at least not before the example which you quoted), but I’m sure there are corporate snakes who do.

Look, it's either "y'all", "vous", or bringing back "thou" for the singular, okay?

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